Bill and I had a quiet Christmas holiday this year.  After an enjoyable Friday night repast with the Mad Scientist (at Agais in Entringen), we spent the weekend mostly watching movies, drinking wine, and enjoying each other’s company.  I’m actually suffering quite a bit from cabin fever lately, so I’m hoping we can get back to going out to eat and taking trips soon.  We may be getting away for MLK weekend if Bill can arrange for an extra day off and I can find suitable accommodations for us and the dogs.

I normally wouldn’t write about something like this on my travel/food blog, but I notice I have many military readers, some of whom may be “housespouses” like me.  I used to do a fair amount of cooking when I first got married, but now Bill does a lot of it.  I’m always on the lookout for appliances that will make his job quicker and easier.

My local friend Grace, a busy mother of three young kids, recently posted on Facebook about how much she was loving her Instant Pot.  She raved about being able to boil down bones into savory broths with little to no effort.  I had not heard of the Instant Pot until I saw Grace’s Facebook post, so off I went to Amazon.de to check it out.  Turns out this appliance is a bit of a wunderkind for the kitchen.  It has seven functions that do everything from making rice to yogurt.  It’s also a pressure cooker, a food warmer, and a slow cooker.

I bought Bill a Crock Pot last year, which he’s loved using.  I think the Instant Pot has the Crock Pot beat.  Last night, he used a pork and beef mixture he got at our local Metzgerei and made a delicious stew with a minimum of fuss.  He said clean up was ridiculously painless, too.  The cooking pot is very efficient and dishwasher safe.  Speaking of safety, the Instant Pot also has several safety mechanisms that make it safer to use than a traditional pressure cooker (although you still have to be careful when you release the steam).

We haven’t yet had the chance to try out all the functions of our new Instant Pot, but I have a feeling that new gadget is going to get a lot of use in our house.  An added bonus is that it does a lot, but only takes up the space of one appliance.

We got the local version, which runs on 220 current and comes with both EU and UK plugs.  I see there’s also a US version available.  If this post inspires you to pick one up, I recommend getting a cookbook to go with it, although Bill has found many blog posts about the Instant Pot and how awesome it is.

I have a feeling this new toy will get lots of use in our house…

I also have another high tech gadget still enroute that Bill will probably love.  If he loves it, I’ll write about it.