Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I bought my first pressure cooker in the seventies in college. For years, I used it mainly to cook beans, due to its speed. I bought this book when it was first issued and have referred to it countless times, since. Pressure cookers today are indeed different than the earlier models (including my old Mirro). With my old cooker, even though I never had an accident, I had to stay close at hand to monitor the pressure regular rattling, etc. Pressure cooking with a modern cooker is so much easier! My latest purchase, earlier this year, was an electric, programmable cooker from Salton that's as easy to use as my rice cooker or Crock Pot. It's true that some of the recipes in this book use ingredients that are not freely available in non-urban areas of the country. No problem: just adapt to what you want to cook! I read a review by a prior person who lamented that they must be a 'meat and potatoes' person. Fine: do your meat and potatoes here! I find that baked potatoes are much more delicious done in the cooker than in the microwave. The time required is rather a split between nuking and conventional baking. Pressure cooking can do wonders on tough meat the same way that a Crock Pot can. Just be sure and brown your meat first! However, I still use my cooker more for beans than anything. Sass gives a full and careful explanation of bean and legume cooking here, as safety must be considered. Since this book came out several other cookbooks have been released on pressure cooking. I've bought some, and the best alternative to this book is the one published by Presto, the maker of the original pressure cooker. It's an excellent reference also, and also recommended.