Customer Reviews

The Pressured Cook: Over 75 One-Pot Meals In Minutes, Made In Today's 100% Safe Pressure Cookers

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This is another terrific cookbook from Lorna Sass! Although we eat vegetarian food 99 percent of the time, I actually welcomed a cookbook that combines meat and vegetarian recipes--it will make a great gift for some of the "mixed" couples in our life (carnivores/vegetarians). Besides, it's a snap to convert the meat recipes to vegetarian by simply leaving out the meat and/or substituting it with tofu, tempeh, bulgur or the like.

But now to the good stuff: I can't emphasize enough how FANTASTIC the cheesecake recipe is in this cookbook! Until now, the New York cheesecake from a certain membership warehouse had been our yardstick for great cheesecake, but this recipe has it beat hands down. Fantastic flavor and texture. Other dessert standouts are the bread pudding recipes, which are delicious and healthy at the same time.

As a main course, the Chickpeas in Eggplant-Tahini Sauce is a delicious dish and tastes like you put a lot more time into preparation than is actually the case. It's always a treat when you can put together something like this to wow guests. Another favorite is the Split Pea-Vegetable Soup with Mint Cream. I LOVE the counterpoint the mint cream makes with this hearty soup. And you just can't beat the convenience of a pressure cooker when it comes to making extremely flavorful meals in a short amount of time. We've converted a number of friends to pressure cookers, and they've never regretted it. This cookbook makes a perfect addition to your cookbook collection.

Lorna Sass knows her stuff when it comes to pressure cookers. Her first pressure cooker book was great with lots of basic, down-home recipes and lots of basic information which is necessary for the beginner. However, this book is for the bored, more advanced cook. Recipes are a little more time consuming, with ingredients that one does not always have in their cupboard. I find that I do not use this book as much as some others. If you are just learning to use the pressure cooker, I would not recommend this book. Try her first book, "Cooking Under Pressure" or "Pressure Cooking for Dummies".

Because Lorna Sass was considered to be the queen of pressure cooking, my family gave me this cookbook and "The Pressure Cooker Cookbook" by Toula Patsalis when I first got my pressure cooker. I found Lorna Sass's recipes to have clearer instructions and a higher success rate.

Since then, I have become addicted to "Split Pea Soup with Smoked Turkey", page 91! The "Smoked Turkey Risotto with Corn and Roasted Red Pepper" on page 93 was also tasty, but it seemed like a lot of work to end up with what resembled an adult macaroni and cheese.

I was grateful that Lorna Sass's book included a full repertoire of pressure cooker basics: various stocks, beans and rice, plus beef stew. Sass's chicken stock had the same list of ingredients as in "Joy of Cooking", but the broth was more gelatinous due to the pressure cooker. That was a mixed blessing, because I had always enjoyed "Joy of Cooking"'s version as a chicken soup, using extra chicken pieces to thicken the broth, but adding back the chicken meat and the still recognizable vegetables to have a soup verging on stew. The pressure cooker version turned the vegetables to mush, but my husband was delighted that I added some egg noodles instead to the soup.

All in all, the book combines basic and sexy recipes, with a high probability of success. Isn't that just what a first pressure cooker cookbook should offer?

Although I have used and enjoyed other cookbooks by this author, I welcomed a new pressure-cooker cookbook that was not exclusively vegetarian. The recipes are extremely reliable, well-tested, designed to be made quickly and, best of all, the ones I have tried have been terrific. I highly recommend this book to anyone with a busy schedule. My particular favorite is a beef chili recipe that includes dried poblano chiles which gives the dish a deliciously smoky undertone.

I am constantly amazed at how quickly I can put dinner on the table for my family when I use my pressure cooker. And I couldn't do it without this book. Each recipe I try is better than the next - full of flavor and color without a lot of fat or fuss. So often I buy cookbooks that appear great but then I find only a few recipes I truly like. In this book, I've tried more than 2 dozen of the recipes so far, and loved all of them. The minestrone soup is delicious and takes only 4 minutes! I'm happy the book includes a number of recipes for beans - as well as lots of vegetables. The chilies, both The Black Bean Chili With Squash and Corn and Turkey Chili, are family favorites. The lamb stew with white wine, prunes and apricots melts into a luscious sauce to accompany fork-tender lamb (in 16 minutes). Previous to buying this book, my favorite beef stew cooked for almost 3 hours in the oven. The Old-fashioned Beef Stew in The Pressured Cook takes 30 minutes and is so delicious. I could go on and on. I have recommended this book to any friend who buys a new pressure cooker. Having a pressure cooker without this book would be akin to the proverbial ship without a sail.

Pressue cooking is now easier, more flavorful and healthier than ever before thanks to Lorna Sass's new book. The recipes are imaginative combinations of ingredients that meld and mingle to produce delightful temptations for the palate. Moreover, the dishes offer a nutritionally healthy alternative to prepackaged processed products and pre-prepared meals that are proliferating in the marketplace today. Vegetarian options are provided for most meat-based dishes and tips to garnish and boost flavor at the end of the cooking period add a fabulous touch. A superb collection which is a MUST-have on every cook's bookshelf !

well, cookbook, anyway, it would be this one (and i've got Julia, Marcella, Claudia and Paula in my kitchen library!) I like to eat good food, and feed my family good food, but I don't have time or patience to play slavish chef and pot washer. "Simmer for hours" does not joy make (or something like that...). And it's just not necessary! The Pope is not served finer Osso Buco than Lorna's with porcini, white beans, and escarole (my favorite company dish). Time saved, tenderness rendered, nutrition and flavor maximized, the pressure cooker doesn't have an equal. And these visually beautiful recipes work flawlessly: no missing steps or disappearing ingredients, no esoteric processes, no component so exotic that it can't be found at your local supermarket. You could choose a different recipe from this book each day and never be bored.
So if i could keep only one pot...

This book really demystifies pressure cooking and allows you to create great dishes in only minutes. The corned beef is so lean, tasty and easy to slice that I never have any leftover. Ribs are falling off the bone and turkey chili is a real winner in my house. I didn't use my pressure cooker much before I got this book but now pressure cooking is the quickest way I get dinner on the table. The food in the Pressured Cook make great meals for entertaining too. And try the cheesecake. No one will believe that you can make cheesecake in a pressure cooker. If you eat it just out of the pressure cooker, it tastes just like a souffle.

I have only recently discovered the great and wonderful pressure cooker, and I wanted a one-pot meal type cookbook to get me started. There are some good recipes in this cookbook, but the majority of the recipes are on the exotic side. I like to try something new every now and then, but this cookbook is 75% exotic and 25% mainstream cooking, and I prefer my cookbooks balanced a little more the other way.

There's something for everyone in this delicious collection of one-pot meals. I loved the ethnic influences. Even if you've never used a pressure cooker, you'll find the procedures easy to understand. Each recipe begins with a brief commentary that gives you a good feeling for what the dish will be like. The hardest thing is deciding which recipe to try first. They all sound so intriguing. One of my favorites is also one of the simplest--the scrod and corn chowder. The salmon variation to this recipe is also outstanding!