Pressure Cooker

I love our pressure cooker. I have mainly used it for beans and brown rice, but while my mom was here after the twins were born, she used it to cook some meat I'd had in the freezer for a while. She made some green chili pork burritos to put in the freezer, and they were mucho delicioso. I tried it out on my own a couple nights ago to make shredded pork salads, and it was a huge hit with the hubby. It was a huge hit with me because it was both quick and delicious.

I put a 1-2 lb. pork loin roast (a very lean cut) in the pressure cooker with an onion I diced and maybe a cup of water with some chicken bouillon. I set the timer for about 35 minutes. When the timer beeped, I was nursing the babes, so I had Dave just turn off the heat. The cooker lost pressure on its own while I finished up. When I opened the cooker,the onions were pretty dark on the bottom, and I was afraid they'd burned, but it turned out they were just deliciously caramelized. I shredded the pork rather easily and added a can of salsa verde. That's it. The salsa verde is super low-cal with no added sugar and a reasonable amount of sodium. I'll be trying a larger roast tonight, so I'll cook it for longer and maybe add more than just one can of salsa verde. The longer you cook the meat in the pressure cooker, I think the more tender it is, so I'm learning to be generous with the timer. We had this on lettuce with avocado and tomato. Super simple and super delicious.

As I was considering our pressure cooker and what else I could try with it, I thought about how some days I feel like my life is a pressure cooker. To be honest, there are moments every day when I feel like I'm in a pressure cooker. When both babies are crying, Sam is screaming unintelligibly in 2-year-old English about something he wants, Jeff is yelling that Ethan keeps making the sound that he told him not to make, and Ethan is trying to tell me a joke to which he expects a charmed and hysterical response, I feel a bit of pressure...a lot of pressure. It's uncomfortable. It's hard. It seems like too much. But in my life I think it's also true that with the pressure, I become more tender. Having twins as babies 4 and 5, forced me to limit some of my commitments, to focus more completely on being a mother, wife, and homemaker. What a tremendous blessing it has been! When I was first married, I thought I only wanted three, maybe four, kids. But now that I have five, I see that with each child, I have become more and more my best self. I am a mother. This is who I was always meant to be. And if I learn to perform well under pressure, as time passes, I will become more and more delicious.