You're saying that like it's a bad thing.

Now I do have a slow cooker so I could use that I guess. I don't want anymore kitchen gadgets!

Another bonus to the cooking beans will be no packaging!

Shallots fired.

Pressure cooker > slow cooker. Slow cooker is trash except for keeping chili hot all day because you are doing some chili cleanse or something.

Yeah I don't even use the slow cooker very often and it takes up heaps of room.

95% of insta pot owners say the same thing.

hc: FWIW I'd have preferred a standard/stovetop pressure cooker, I think. But I have an instapot bc DOORBUSTERS. Anyway, anyone looking at this, consider a stovetop one if you even cook.

lc: shallots fired!

nc: k

I somehow don't own an Instapot; my old school stovetop one has been fine.

What's an instapot do that a pressure cooker doesn't? I could probably pick up a pressure cooker at an op shop for next to nothing.

Instapot makes perfect rice, plus you can use it as a slow cooker.

I do perfect rice in a pot on the stove and already have a slow cooker so really should just get a pressure cooker and I would save myself a fair amount of money.

I have an Instapot and I do ALL THE THINGS with it

You people sound like you're in a cult.

All glory to Instapot. Instapot 2019.

"you people"
problematic... unless you can show that you have a friend with an instapot?

In other instapot news, I made about 7L (don't ask) of this last night in the ol' instapot. A few batches. Pretttay goooood. Very k. Doesn't need a recipe! https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/...up-recipe.html

Too soon.

Rexx, stove top's not necessarily cheaper. Just checked Amazon and 40 of their 42 stove-top models cost more than what I paid for my Instantpot on sale. But you don't seem like a good candidate for a pressure cooker--you can't taste the food and make adjustment while it cooks, you can't add different foods at different times so all your veggies get cooked for the same amount of time leaving most of them mush, etc., etc. They're great for throwing everything in at once and ignoring it until it's done 30 minutes later, but that doesn't seem to be how you like to prepare food and I would advise against one in your case.

I was just going to look out for one at an op shop or something so it's cheap and if I don't like it I could just donate it back. I just googled instapot and it looks like we can't even get them here Save me some money at least. Yeah I like to freestyle cooking generally speaking but some things I stick to a recipe, generally one I've adapted over time until I am happy with it but a pressure cooker would be good for beans etc and I am trying to incorporate more of that sort of stuff into my diet. I'll try out my slow cooker with the beans and see if that works ok and go from there.

Freestyle cooking seems like freestyle gyming. Just random clicking.

Following a program (recipe) always superior, unless you are a pro.

**** off lol. Have you seen the average American recipe online? Put a can of soup in a pot add 2 cups of sour cream 2 tbsps of salt and heat while stirring. Or salad dressings with 1 cup of brown sugar! lolol

Learn how to cook! Recipes are great but if you don't know the basics and have a fundamental understanding of the process you will never truly be that great at it. Plus cooking allows for creativity. If nobody ever experimented we wouldn't have such great recipes now.

At the end of the day, what would I rather eat? Some random clicking from Rex or a seriouseat recipe from my man montecore? It's not even facking close. Home cooking is so fake, unless you are a pro, or following a solid recipe.

It's easy to **** on following recipes, if you go after the nut low approach that no one is advocating.

I'm w/ Loco on this one.

It's really just a 3 step process these days.

1. figure out what you want to eat, call it X
2. Google "Kenji X" (there are other reasonable subs for Kenji, but he's my go to guy)
3. Follow steps in recipe

If you think you can routinely beat that with your own experience and creativity, then you are either a professional chef, should be one, or are just a very rare individual that no one else should really count on being able to become.

There are two types of people who don't use recipes:

1. people who have a vast repertoire of technique and experience and can improvise great recipes on the fly

2. people who think they're much better cooks than they really are

I've heard a lot about this Kenji fella but I've never used one of his recipes. I don't do much creative savory cooking, so I rarely use recipes. I just cook meat/vegetables/rice in a straighforward way, and I generally don't like sauces or spices.

Pastry I always use recipes even though I'm a professional. Anyone who doesn't is an idiot.

This whole conversation started because I made a joke about needing a recipe for stew!! Of course I use recipes, especially in regards to baking. My point is that there are fundamental processes involved in cooking and it would be great if people actually learnt these so they had good foundations in place. Also Monte has stated in the past that he often cuts the sugar in half when making a recipe. Why? Because he has a good fundamental understanding of cooking and nutrition! Some things you absolutely need to follow to a tee as it would be a disaster otherwise but the whole point is that it took a certain amount of experimenting to get that worked out in the first place.

Also when you have cooked on an everyday basis and love food you get to be fairly decent at it. Plus anyone with an ounce of sense can substitute things in and out of a recipe if they have somebody who is allergic or intolerant to a certain ingredient. I certainly don't have any aspirations of becoming a Michelin star chef but I can cook well enough that my partner, friends and family are happy and that's all I really care about. Lol at loco coming in talking big about cooking. Homecooking is fake lol. Do you even cook bro?

Home cooking is fake, but I never knew it until I started cooking in professional kitchens. Ever since I started working in restaurants and bakeries I lost almost all interest in cooking at home other than to simply feed myself protein and vegetables. There are lots of professional chefs who have absolutely no interest in cooking at home. A pro chef cooking at home is like a pro sculptor with a little tub of Play-doh at home.

If cutting sugar in half = fundamental understanding of cooking, you've got a pretty low bar imo.