Sometimes I'm just amazed at how the simplest food preparation can produce such wonderful results. I wanted to use up some potatoes that were getting kind of old, and I was thinking of all the different ways I could prepare them when I settled on peeling, cutting into large hunks and pressure-cooking for five minutes. The resulting potato chunks were put on a plate, sprinkled sparingly with salt, dusted with freshly ground pepper and drizzled with a bit of olive oil. Perfection.
The pressure-cooker really is a time saver, a flavor enhancer and an invaluable aid to lazy cooks. I will start using it more to cook vegetables and beans. In the case of the potatoes, I put about one inch of water into the cooker with the potato chunks, brought it to pressure, turned the heat down a little and set the timer for five minutes. When the timer went off, I turned off the flame and let the pressure come down. The result was full-flavored, perfectly cooked potatoes.
