My name is Michael, and I’m a pressure cooker addict.

Sure, it started out innocently enough. I decided to start cooking at home more. Years of pub fare and food trucks somehow was causing my trousers to shrink.

At first it was just entrees, then the next thing I know it escalated to side dishes as well.

I started buying new kitchen equipment, I couldn’t control myself. A copper saucepan here, a stainless steel saute pan there. But I wanted more. Pretty soon I found myself walking in the door with a Dutch oven. Everyone knows the Dutch oven is a gateway pan. But it wasn’t enough. I needed something stronger, more powerful.

Then one day, browsing through the local “dealer”, I saw it… it was gleaming steel, and I swear it was emanating a glow, trumpets sounding a fanfare… this was it, or as the kids say these days, “That’s what I’m talking about.” Sleek molded handles, dials, vents and multiple safety features. I had to have it, whatever it was.

It turned out to be a 7-liter Kuhn Rikon Duromatic Top pressure cooker. To many, the top-of-the-line. I would do whatever I needed to possess this thing, even if it meant spending my grocery money, which I guess could be construed as being a bit ironic. I walked out the door clutching my new-found obsession, ready to embark on a great new adventure.

Before long I was making a variety of chili and stews. Cincinnati chili, Texas Chili, Hungarian Goulash, Coq au Vin. Who cares that this was in the middle of the summer with the temperature approaching 90 degrees (and that is inside). I soon learned that the pressure cooker is also useful for things that aren’t quite as heavy as the stews and soups I had been making. In fact, using it for such things as pasta and grains cuts down on the cooking time, which along with lowering the heat once pressure is reached can keep the kitchen cooler. Sure, I’ve tried at least a couple things that probably would have worked out better using other methods of cooking, but I just had to see if it could be done in the pressure cooker.

Sometimes, while watching the food shows on television, I see something that looks interesting and can’t help thinking, “Hmmmm, I wonder if I could make that in the pressure cooker. One thing I discovered this way is Rouladen, a German dish consisting of Beef rolled around a filling, which I hope to document on this site sometime soon (the past couple times I have made it I neglected to take photos). This is currently my favorite thing that I cooked in the pressure cooker, but I have made many other things that have been almost as tasty.

This site, besides trying to tout the joys of cooking with pressure, will also serve as a way for me to document just what the heck I did to make these things, because I often forget how I made certain recipes.

Now that I have become a pressure-cooker explorer, I invite you all to take this journey with me. Perhaps you, too will become a Pressure Cooker Convert.