What is it??.............Grandma's Microwave!!

Quick Cooking, One Pot Meals

If Grandma wanted to make a one pot meal in a hurry she did not have a microwave so she used her pressure cooker.
For those of you who haven't seen one or used one, this is a Pressure Cooker:

I haven't used this one for a while but if you want pot roast, swiss steak, beef stew, pork shoulder, etc. at crock-pot like results in about 1/8the time, use a pressure cooker.  Also, with the boiling point going down about 1.5 degrees for every 1,000 foot in elevation, it will reduce cooking times at altitude.

Typical cooking times:  Pork shoulder for Carnitas or Pulled Pork 45 min, Pot Roast 45 min, Swiss Steak or Beef Stew 15 min.  For the longer cooking times, it is usually best to cook vegetables separate as they will get a little mushy after 30 minutes.  There are 100s of pressure cooker recipes on Google, etc.  One of my favorite recipe sites is Allrecipes.com   Here is my adaptation of pressure cooker swiss steak:

2-3 lbs of round steak  (thicker cuts are better)

1/2 cup broth or (shudder) water

1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup

4-6 red potatoes cut in half

3 carrots cut in pieces (BTW, I don't peel 'em, I just scrub 'em)

Maybe some celery

Maybe a sliced onion

1 Tbs cooking oil

The recipe is the same for Beef Stew, just change the meat.

Brown the meat in the oil.  I use a trivet in the bottom of the cooker after browning for pressuring.  Ingredients on top of the trivet.   Add all of the other ingredients and bring to pressure.  Pressure for 15 minutes and remove from heat and let pressure drop to safe levels by itself.  The gravy is just about the right consistency with the mushroom soup.

Pressure cookers are safe unless you do something really crazy like taking the pressure weight off while under pressure.  Mine and all of the others I have seen, cannot remove the lid while under pressure.  They all have safety vents so they can't "explode".  Only down side is cleanup.