Okay, sorry for the delay in posting again. Got an unexpected date night last night so everything else went out the window, LOL!
The casserole with the wheatberries and hamburger (dubbed Wheaties Casserole) was a hit. Hubby wanted a little more oomph to the spices, but kids and I loved it just the way it was! Recipe came from Shelf Reliance website (www.tracey.shelfreliance.com). It filled a 9x13 pan and was very filling. A side of corn, some bread, and a salad, and this would feed a small army easily.
Then for last night, I wanted to try the beans and rice "recipe" from the old Tightwad Gazette book. It said to use a pressure cooker, 1 cup of dry beans in a "large pot" which is supposed to fit inside your pressure cooker, and then rice in another small pot that fits inside the "bean pot." Both pots have water added, and water in the bottom of the cooker, foil is put over both inside pots, and cooked at 15 lbs. pressure for 30 minutes.
I wanted to try it as written, but I don't have any pots that can fit inside the pressure cooker (especially since you're supposed to boil the beans on the stovetop before you put them in the cooker, and all my pots have long handles, LOL!), and trying to fit 2 containers inside that cooker was just not happening.
I ended up using a heavy cereal bowl for the beans, and did the rice in a separate pot on the stove. I put 1 cup of dry pink beans in water in a pot and brought them to a boil on the stove. Once they boiled for a minute or so, I drained the water off and put the beans in the deep cereal bowl with 2 cups fresh water and 2 TBLS oil. I think maybe that's when I should have put some spices in there, and maybe more water, because the beans were cooked well, but didn't have much broth, and had zero flavor, LOL!
I put the lid on (I had never used a pressure cooker before, just my pressure canner), and got it up to 15 lbs. pressure. Then I got the rice going (used white rice although brown would obviously be healthier) in another pot. I do it the way my mom does, and it works really easy and isn't sticky. Put the rice in with lots of water (don't measure the water, just use a lot) and bring to a good boil. Keep it boiling, with lid off until you test the rice and it's as done as you like it. Pour the rice and water into a big colander and rinse the rice with cold water really well. Use a fork or your hands to really work the water through all the rice, to rinse off all the starch (that's what makes it sticky). Then let it sit in the colander for a while to dry off, and every once in a while fluff it with the fork so it all gets dry. Turns out great with no stress on timing or stickiness.
After 30 minutes, I was really nervous about the pressure-dropping part. With canning, you just turn the heat off and let it cool down all by itself and don't mess with it. With pressure cooking, you usually take the cooker to the sink and run cold water over the lid to drop the pressure quickly. This was scary to me! I didn't know exactly what I was supposed to do with the weighted pressure gauge, so I took it off with a pot holder once I turned the heat off and it stopped jiggling. Then I waited for the stream of hot steam to stop coming out the vent (which only took a minute or two), and then I carefully took the whole thing to the sink, remembering that there was a cereal bowl inside with the beans in it! Ran the water over the top, and nothing cracked or blew up! After a couple of minutes of that I VERY CAREFULLY tried to open the lid. This was where I was really expecting the lid to shoot out of my hand and all things bad to break loose, LOL! But it was fine, and I pulled the tin foil off with tongs and fished out a couple of beans and they were done! In 30 minutes! Bland as all get out, but done.
So, overall it was a good first attempt. I will try putting garlic and onion in with the beans next time, and may just try cooking them in the cooker itself, because I would want to make more than my little cereal bowl could hold. It would be great to be able to do both the beans and rice in one cooker, but I don't know how that would work. More experiments for the future!
So, overall, a couple of good days for cooking from food storage. I have no idea what I'm doing tonight, because we planned to do the date night tonight, but I'll post tomorrow and let you know what I did and how it turned out!
Tracey
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