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Ivy, i am not sure what you mean by scrubbing. I did clean the pressure cooker as usual after the meal was done.

The slow cooker recipe calls for searing the meat on the stovetop, removing and it, quickly searing the garlic and anchovies and then deglazing with the wine to get the fond and putting it all in the slow cooker. The pot for my slow cooker is SS so it can go on top of the stove, but most folks would have to dirty another pot to do the sear, a pita. When I did it in the pressure cooker, I seared the meat, then put it on a plate, then added the garlic, etc. added the wine, use a Tovolo spoon to move the fond of the bottom and then added some broth to have enough liquid, put the lid on and pressure cooked it. There was no nore cleanup than usual.

I sear my Cuban pot roast first as well before closing and pressure cooking. It does not stick unless it there is not enough liquid and it overcooks, the same as any pot.

Well, beef broth is a hit. Did CI's Rich beef stock from the original version of Soups and Stews (the one that has you waste (I mean use) 6 lbs of meat and bones to make 2 quarts of stock. I used oxtails and bone in blade roast, ran it for 2 hours and ended up with amazing clear meat jelly once it was strained and defatted, despite veering from the recipe and using at least 4 quarts of water. The beef blade still had a ton of flavour, so I have 4 cups of it shredded and frozen it for future uses (taco filling, maybe, or ragu or shepherd's pie). Then, thinking of you, Tim, I ran the oxtails through a 2nd time with a bit of tomato paste, fresh onion, carrots and celery, and after 2 hours had another 4 quarts of nicely flavoured stock (but with quite a bit less gelatin). All in a single morning. I used the first run to make French onion soup with for DH's birthday today. So, so good! I made CI's 1998 recipe with the red onions, only I used white wine and cognac instead of the red wine and balsamic vinegar called for. It's amazing made this way. I'm loving the pressure cooker!

On the weekend we did one of my favorite lazy/fast PC recipes, Alton Brown's Pressure Cooker Chili. Kinda semi-ho-ish, but surprisingly good. My only real diff is I used a quality cut of beef (nicely marbled) and added marmite.

Chili sounds good. We were hit with snow here. +29 C to -2 over the course of less than a week was a bit of a shock. The snow melted, but the cold has stayed.

Paul - what cut did you use? How is this as leftovers? It's not clear given the tortilla chips.

I used some kind of blade, but is was very lovely (I was going by 'look', not the label). The tortilla chips don't stay as chips at all, they are in fact completely dissolved into the chili and thicken (and flavour) it as masa would in a traditional chili. It makes excellent left-overs, I'm having some today as a matter of fact

I'll note that we usually use 'hot' salsa, and the end product is fairly hot (spicy). Also, in the last incarnation, the first bite is a bit 'harsh', but all following ones are great. Not sure why; possibly in this case, since all we had was a chipotle based salsa on hand (Frontera), there might have been so much smokiness (we left in the original chipotles) that it added an initial harsh edge. But as I said, only the first bite.

Simply reading the recipe made my mouth burn! Glad you confirmed that. Thanks. I'm thinking of cutting down on to 1 TB chipotle & sauce combined and mild salsa. Chili would be great on a day like today (cold rainy) especially since we're holding out on turning the furnace on!

Soccermom's black bean soup recipe also has tortilla chips as a thickener. I wonder if you could use masa or xirn tortillas for a similar/healthier result. Thoughts?

Mary

Corn. Texting while drinking.

I'm not sure 100% about tortillas, but certainly I'd imagine masa could actually be used; i've certainly used it in stovetop recipes. You'd gain a reduction in fat, which may or may not be desirable (probably is...). I'd imagine these are using chips as you can get them anywhere whereas masa is a speciality ingredient most places; sometimes very hard or impossible to get in smaller areas.

Thanks for clearing that up Mary, I thought that maybe xirn tortillas were an exotic swiss only variant.