Pressure cooker for meals...does anyone use one?

Pressure cookers -

We use our pressure cooker several times a month -- anything from stews to pulled pork. You can even make mashed potatoes in about 15 minutes (7 minutes to come up to pressure and another 6 to cook.)

Try QVC -- they have a Cooks Essentials and a Technique brand cooker. We have the Cooks Essentials (this is our second in about 6 years)

Pressure Cooker suggestions

As a cooking teacher who specializes in teaching people about pressure cookers, and as someone who uses at least one almost every day, I would recommend either the Fagor or Magefesa. They are both made in Spain and work well. More affordable than many of the other imported stove top cookers. I have not tried any of the newer digital electric cookers so I cannot comment on them.
I think that a pressure cooker is an essential piece of kitchen equipment and make everything in mine from steel cut oats to soup, stew, chili and great garlic mashed potatoes to 1 minute broccoli with greens. I could go on and on but won't.

I'm skeered of 'em ever since I pulled a lid off a hot one 28 years ago :(

The lid made a hole in the kitchen ceiling.

New Pressure Cookers are Safe

You can't open the pot due to all the safety features so no fear necessary. They are safe to use for all kinds of cooking. No horror stories, mostly successes, and fast cooking. It's a joy, and fun.

I have a very good one which I like very much...the brand is NESCO. It is a browner, pressure cooker, steamer and slow cooker. I like the pressure cooker bit...oh....I like all the features in it and uses it a lot when I have to go out and/or needed to be in a hurry to do a one-pot meal. It is the most useful appliance in my kitchen next to my KitchenAid appliances.

I prefer Magefesa pressure cooker from several years.
A I think Cooker is the most basic thing in kitchen. I use it at least twice in a day, to cook rice and to cook vegetables like Potatoes, beans & even carrot with in few seconds.

Oregon your the same as me

im scared witless of them , absolutly no way will i ever have one in the house, when i was 17 we had a really old one , the type that you had to run under the cold tap to release the pressure , mum was up the other end of the house and asked me to take the cooker off the stove top and de pressure it, i didnt realise that all the pressure wasnt out and unstuck the lid and about 20 lbs of boiliing stew exploded all over me , all over my chest, up my neck all over my face and over my right hand, mum got me under cold running water and dad drove us up to a hospital that dealt in burn , it was probably about 30 min drive normally my dad made it in about 15 mins , they used gallons of iced water in compresses to control the burns i was really lucky in that i didnt get permanent scaring on my face, the only sign of it now is my right side of my face is a bit more dry than the left and i have a serious freckle thing happening on my chest that never gets tanned if i go out in the sun.

sorry to hijack your thread Betty girlfriend im not much help on the pressure cooker thing

you dont have that kind of problem with the cookers these days they are very safe , now which is always a good thing

In the good old days, when I bought my pressure cooker, my mother managed to somehow did the same thing you did, tessa...we have to redo our whole kitchen. The incident taught her quite a few lessons but our pressure cooker at the time became the most used pot in the kitchen. I have learned how to manage them when I learned how to cook as one thing about me is that I never turn my back to go somewhere else while I am cooking. No matter where I have a home, I always have a pressure cooker in the kitchen.

Last Christmas I was given a NESCO. It has been a long time in between that I have a pressure cooker and all that I used to have are stove topped one. This one is different as it shuts off automatically at desired settings, so no way it will blow up on me...even if I turned my back and go to another room for a while. Since it also operates as a slow cooker, when I chose that option, I can leave it all day and do my gardening or go shopping and my house will still be the way I left it last...nowadays pressure cookers are safer than when I first started...