Cooking Tips

I want a complete balanced meal when I cook. This means I use the microwave, pressure cooker, stove, and oven all at the same time to cook everything. I don’t usually cook one pot meals. Pressure cookers work great for meats and grains. Brown rice is quick and easy. I tend to use a pressure cooker mostly for meats, soups, and stews. The Lorna Sass books are very nice. The Sass Whole Grain book cannot be beat. I have all of the Sass books but I find I tend to use this book a little more often than hers. I am glad that I have all of these cookbooks. I would probably buy this book first to begin pressure cooking, then get the Sass books. They have things that are not in Miss Vickie’s book. Vickie Smith and Lorna J. Sass are the two best authors of pressure cooker cookbooks. If you want vegetarian or vegan pressure cooking, get the Sass books. They are superior for that. For a good first general purpose pressure cooking cookbook I recommend you get Miss Vickie’s Pressure Cooker Recipes.

I am really enjoying this book. It has a lot of information on cooking all different food types in the pressure cooker as well as tips to ensure success. (When reading, I recognized some of my previous cooking errors.) There are comprehensive pressure cooking time charts and information for multi-level cooking as well as real variety in the recipes . They predominantly call for fresh and easy-to-find ingredients.

I wanted to address the low-rating reviews that recommended Lorna Sass’s books over this one. I own two Lorna Sass books: while they are quality cookbooks and do include more recipes for vegetables and grains, there is information in Miss Vickie’s cookbook that does not appear in Lorna Sass’s. I do understand that people’s needs and preferences are different, but there is much in this book to recommend to all pressure cooker users.

There may be other motives in some reviews in which Miss Vickie’s book is not accurately represented. I used to visit a pressure cooking forum on Vegsource (a vegetarian website). One day, Miss Vickie posted in response to a question on that forum and was attacked by other members of the site because she has meat-based recipes on her own website. When I quietly reported this to the moderator, hoping to have the offending post removed, I was banned from the site. Lorna Sass is heavily promoted on this site because she has written a book for vegetarian pressure cooking (although, paradoxically, she authored several other books containing numerous meat recipes). This experience has colored my view of some of the negative postings.

I’ve been using a stove top pressure cooker for a while, but with inconsistent results. Miss Vickie’s book is such an excellent resource. I have a better idea as to why some previous attempts did not work out too well. The reader will gain a sense of confidence and the recipes are varied and numerous. Plan to try the meat sauce for pasta this weekend. I’m not much of a cook, but I do feel that my efforts to prepare better tasting and healthy food — in less time — are well invested with the pressure cooker. Miss V, Thank you for such an excellent resource!

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