I received the Crock Pot Express Crock Multi-Cooker***as a gift last month for Christmas. I was very excited to receive it, as I have been thinking about investing in an electric pressure cooker for a few months now. I grew up eating pressure cooked food and am very fond of the soft texture the pressure cooker gives meats and vegetables. Also I know that pressure cooking dinner can be a real timesaver.
My husband and I received a stove top pressure cooker as a wedding gift six years ago, but so far he is the only person in our house who cooks with it. I think in the past I have been a bit of afraid of using a pressure cooker because of the hissing and steam that it releases. However, I have been hearing a lot of talk lately about the Instant Pot and other electric pressure cookers are and I wanted to try it out. Also with our impending arrival, I thought an electric pressure cooker might be a faster way to make dinner.
The Crock Pot Express Multi-Cooker we received 
For this first attempt at cooking with the multi-cooker I chose a recipe that I read about the Today Show website. The Today Show story was about how The Instant Pot, a similar product to the Crock Pot Express Multi-Cooker, helped a woman named Brittany Williams reach her 125 lb weight loss goal. Ms. Williams started a website called Instant Loss that includes healthy recipes she created for her Instant Pot. Right now I am not necessarily interested in weight loss but I love that her recipes are healthy and quick. I decided I wanted to make her recipe for Instant Pot Cajun Goulash.
One tip I learned by reading the Amazon reviews for my Express Multi-Cooker is that the Instant Pot has a few buttons that my electric pressure cooker does not have. For example, my Crock-Pot Express Multi-Cooker does not have a manual/ pressure cook button while the Instant Pot does have that button. While working on my recipe the instructions told me to use the “Manual Function” to pressure cook the ingredients after sauteing the vegetables and meat. I learned from the Amazon questions and answers to use the Chili/Beans function when the recipe calls for “Manual Adjustments” so I can adjust the pressure to low or high and set cooking times. I might not have figured this out right away had it not been for the information I read.
This fact causes me to think that there might be a slight learning curve when using recipes written for the Instant Pot with my Crock-Pot Express Multi-Cooker. I am not scared off, but it is something to be aware of when cooking.
Here are some pictures of the Cooking Process:
I had a few substitutions to the recipe. I used ground chicken instead of ground turkey because I prefer ground chicken. I also used regular elbow macaroni instead of chickpea macaroni, because I eat gluten and do not have time to look for a store that sells chickpea macaroni.
The final product was delicious! Patrick, Brendan and I gobbled it up in no time and Brendan even gave it special compliments. This recipe is a keeper.
We have not used the Multi-Cooker since I made this recipe almost two weeks ago. In the meantime Patrick has started getting out of his crib during naptime or sleeping in the car, so my toddler-less afternoon time has disappeared for the time being, most days. He did sleep this afternoon, which is how I was able to write this blog post.
I will use it again soon, and hopefully I will have more recipes and cooking experiments to share with you all.
What have you been making this winter? Reply below in the comments section.
***Thank you for reading! This post contains affiliate links to Amazon. If you click on them and order anything, not just anything mentioned in this post, I will receive a small percentage. Thank you!
