Like many people, I received an Instapot for Christmas. I was excited to get this new device, but a little unsure of how to use it. Fortunately, I also was gifted The Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook by Laurel Randolph, which has a ton of delightful sounding recipes developed for my new toy. We headed to the grocery Saturday night to buy all the ingredients we needed to make Sunday Pot Roast on Sunday. We were having a lazy Sunday, so I got started on this endeavor later than I should have, as the recipe said it would take about 2 hours to cook. I started by reading the directions of the device, washing it and doing a test run with water.

As with any new toy or kitchen experience, Lola was definitely interested in the various noises that the Instapot made. I started by sautéing the seasoned roast in the instant pot for 4 minutes on each side. I liked that all the cooking was done in one pot, saving Mike some time when it came to dishes. After I cooked the meat, I sautéed the onions. I added in garlic, thyme, a bay leaf, and beef broth, deglazing the pot. I put the roast back in and cooked it for 1 hour at high pressure. During that hour, Mike chopped up potatoes, carrots, and parsnips to add to the pot. After the roast cooked, we did a quick release and added in the vegetables. The vegetables cooked at high heat for 10 minutes.

We did a 10 minute natural release of steam followed by a quick release while we heated up some bread in the oven. Finally, dinner was ready. It was amazing! The meat was so tender and had so much flavor. It tasted like it had cooked for hours. The vegetables were fork tender and had picked up the flavors in just a few minutes. This meal took a bit longer than some of the other recipes seem to take, but it was definitely worth the wait. It made plenty of leftovers and now I feel more confident in my abilities to work with this new device. I look forward to trying it again soon and testing out some of the various functions.

The New Austonian