We did it – we joined the fad by purchasing an Instant Pot today. Why?? Our decades old crockpot “died”. It has several dents and the handles have fallen off. The High setting is too hot, low setting too low, and the warm setting doesn’t warm. The lid handle was the recent calamity. We adapted but it was getting to the point of frustration. While researching a replacement (we use our crockpot frequently!), I stumbled upon a cookware category – Multi Cooker.
For those of you like us who had no idea this appliance existed, it is basically a combination slow cooker, rice cooker, and pressure cooker. We have a rice cooker we love and a pressure cooker that is only used when canning due to its size (23 quarts). Not realistic to use to cook dinner.
The idea of pressure cooking is intriguing. Cook it under pressure in less time. The Instant Pot has a 6 quart capacity. Our old crockpot was 5 quart so not much difference here.
Tonight we tried making brown rice in the Instant Pot. On the stove top, it takes about 50 minutes and we have to worry about burning or undercooking. With our Zojirushi rice cooker, brown rice takes about 50 minutes BUT is always perfect! Even if we leave it on warm for hours after it cooks, it is still perfect.
The Instant Pot brown rice was not perfect! It cooked in about 25 minutes (a plus) but after sitting on warm for about 30 minutes it was on the dry side. Guess we will keep the rice cooker.
Now to experiment with the pressure cooker feature!
If you have a great recipe for this device, let us know!
Decluttering the Stuff 
We’ve been thinking about getting one. I even have a picture of it and a coupon on our bulletin board but we just haven’t got there yet. How easy is it to clean?
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OMG! It is very easy to clean. It is basically a stainless steel pot. So far nothing has been burnt to the bottom or sides but if it had been, it would be easy to clean. The top is also stainless steel and easy to clean as well. We’ve not had anything weird happen to make the outside dirty so it is just being wiped off.
I’ll go out on a branch here and say “Why didn’t we know about this appliance sooner?”
BTW, sorry to hear about your “homesickness”.
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Thanks! I sure hope I can live up to my plan to mitigate some of this homesickness. Angie suggested we simply go back to FL more often; a plan that I’m very much in favor of 🙂
That’s awesome on the Instant Pot! Mrs. Clean (Angie) was worried about it being a pain to clean like our current crock pot. I think we’re going to go get one tomorrow. We’re thinking it might also be good for road-tripping. We usually carry around a single burner, skillet and saucepan. This would definitely minimize all that gadgetry and free up space in the Peanut.
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We also purchase a few years ago (for kiddo #2 when the landlord took away her stove) a single induction cook surface. It is awesome to use when camping with electricity. We have the RV now so it works perfectly, especially for cleanup and packing after cooking. She recently moved to a place with a stove and wants it back. Guess we can give it up since we were only using it in RV and that ship sailed for this summer since my torn rotator cuff ☹️. We are looking forward to using the Instant Pot on our trip next.
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I bought one of these on Prime Day (July 11), and I just got it in the mail today. I can’t wait to get started! Thank you for sharing your experience with the Instant Pot – I’ll be checking back to see if you’ve got more recipes! 🙂
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Congrats! It has been interesting. The only thing I used my old pressure cooker for was canning. Can’t wait to do other things!
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How exciting to finally declutter the sad old crock! she served her time well!
We have one of those pressure cookers too. Love the meat in it. Not the broccoli or Brussel sprouts!!
Maybe because she cooked them both at once??
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We were looking at the veggie option. It would be easier to microwave or steam them than to pressure cook them. We are trying to make beans tonight without soaking first. I’ll let you know how that works.
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Please do!
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Do you have to leave it on warm for that long or could you just eat it after the 25 minutes?
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We could have eaten it, but needed to wait for the rest of the meal to be finished. We weren’t sure about the time to pressurize. Tonight we are trying something else. I’ll let you know how it goes!
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Ok!!
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