Recipe Box: Instantly instant
The main reason people love an Instant Pot is because they love things instantly. Our world wants everything right now. Patience is a dying virtue when we have so many quick conveniences right at our fingertips. We can have groceries delivered to our door, restaurant food delivered within the hour, and movies on demand, just to name a few quick services offered.
When sitting at a restaurant, we want our food cooked to perfection, but we expect it to arrive at our table in a timely manner. Coffee is an American obsession, and at any given hour of the day, the line at Starbucks is known to be circled around the building. People expect themselves and others to heal quickly after a major surgery. If someone is on a weight loss journey, it doesn’t happen overnight, but many lose track of the goal when they don’t see instant results. When the power goes out, residents lose their minds, calling the power company repeatedly and wanting to know when their electricity will be restored. When it comes to phones, we have them at our fingertips, so people put pressure on others to respond immediately. This isn’t just for cell phones; landlines have answering machines, and people in general expect calls, emails, and texts to be returned right away.
Our society expects instant gratification. We don’t want to wait and will bend our heart’s true desire to get what we want in an instant. I’m all for practicing patience, moving slowly, and smelling the flowers. However, when it comes to dinner time, having an Instant Pot makes hectic evenings less stressful. If you don’t plan ahead for dinner by thawing meat from the freezer, the Instant Pot can cook it from frozen to perfection in a short amount of time.
It’s no surprise that the Instant Pot is as popular as it is today since the main claim is that it can cook food in a fraction of the time. You simply set it and then walk away until your food is ready. That makes the Instant Pot a perfect solution for when you want to get a home cooked meal on the table fast. While our mothers and grandmothers were comfortable using a stovetop pressure cooker, most women of this generation are intimidated by the hissing and potential safety issues. Because of this, pressure cooking fell out of favor for a while.
All that has changed with the arrival of the Instant Pot. The Instant Pot is a self-contained, electrical pressure cooker controlled through a digital interface and built-in safety features. It sits on your countertop and plugs into an outlet. It takes up about as much space as a rice cooker or slow cooker. You tell it how long you want to cook your meal under pressure, set the timer and you’re good to go. It automatically brings up and holds the pressure at a safe level and will not allow you to open the pot while it’s pressurized. This makes it as easy to operate as a microwave. The amount of time you save using the Instant Pot can be used to practice patience in other areas of your life.
Contact Ashley at ashley@tippgazette.com
Instant Pot Chicken and Rice
INGREDIENTS
1 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil
1/2 yellow onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. smoked paprika
1 c. white rice
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 1/4 c. low-sodium chicken broth or water
2 medium carrots, diced
1 red bell pepper, chopped
3 boneless skinless chicken breasts
Freshly chopped parsley, for garnish
DIRECTIONS
Preheat Instant Pot by setting to “Sauté”. Add oil and cook onion until softened, 3 to 4 minutes. Add garlic, oregano, and paprika and cook until fragrant, 1 minute.
Stir in rice and broth and season with salt and pepper. Add carrots, bell pepper, and chicken, and season generously again with salt and pepper.
Close lid, change setting to manual or "Pressure Cook" and set for 8 minutes on High. When 8 minutes is up, let pot decompress naturally for 10 minutes, then release pressure, remove lid, and shred chicken. Top with parsley before serving.