Thursday, March 09, 2006

Honey Smacks us Some Dinner

So, my Mom gave me her pressure cooker over christmas. Let me just tell you that I love this damned thing. It makes THE best corned beef, bar none. It also cooks a really mean pot roast, and I try to follow the same recipe that my Mom picked up from a neighbor probably more than 30 years ago. (I know she'll probably be on here leaving a comment with the exact date, so I'll leave the date open for now) Anyway, the recipe is so freakin easy. Sear the meat (hehe, I said meat) in the pressure cooker until brown on all sides. Add a can of cream of mushroom soup and some red wine, put the cover and the weight on, wait until it starts to sizzle, turn the temp down to medium, then let it cook...45 minutes, an hour...depending on how big the roast is. What kind of roast? I don't frickin know, I buy a chunk o' meat. This is a nearly foolproof recipe that turns out perfectly every time. Enter: ME.
The first time I tried the recipe, it turned out as good as I remembered...the roast fell apart, the sauce that it makes is just superb, and we ate like pigs. The next time...not so much. I couldn't get the thing to sizzle, and I futzed around with the damned thing for way too long and in the end, the roast was not cooked enough. A few more semi-successful tries later and we are at this evening's fiasco. The cooker was not sizzling, so I pressured it down, took the lid off and cleaned and futzed with the rubber seal. (hehe, I said...SEAL) put it back on and Voila! it worked like a charm! Maybe...TOO well? So, I let it sizzle for an hour or so and figure that it's done, so I take it out, pressure it down, then try to open it up. NO GO. I tried forcing it, and the top handle broke off. In a panic, I call my honey to come help and he comes out and proceeds to rip off rest of the handle and basically anything else we could use to grasp to open the lid. So, we send the youngest down to get a hammer, and basically, we had to slam the shit out of lid to open it up and get our dinner out. While bashing the lid with the hammer, Honey breaks down in hysterical laughter at the whole situation and turns to me and says, "Get the camera, I know THIS is getting blogged!" Witness: The carnage===>

Dinner was fabulous, by the way.

6 comments:

Daydreamer of Oz said...

ROFLMAO great post, I love your writing style...never knew anyone who could make a pressure cooker seem interesting ;)
Oh yeah & I love your layout also!

Kim said...

I have an ancient pressure cooker that was my mom's from when I was a kid. I love it too! I only cook one thing in it though, and when the little cover starts to rock I go waaaaaaaaaaay back to being a kid again.

Anonymous said...

You know, I had the frigging thing for 15 years and managed to open and close it innumerable tmes without reducing it to rubble. This has to be a record even for you.
Like your picture.
Your mother

Anonymous said...

times

David Edward said...

men will do what they must to eat.

Anonymous said...

I think you did something wrong. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to have to hammer your food out. :P

And dang it. Now I want to know what went wrong.