Diane Kistner

Simon Torsten wrote:What do you mean by seedlings?

...

Maybe you need them to do their job for a little while?

Tiny seedlings, but tons of them.... I think you're right I need to let them do their job for a while.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Perhaps you could manage a woodlot too, replacing the unwanted trees with what you want, as the funds are available.

That's a thought...

I've been working for four years now having MANY bug-infested pines taken down on our 3/4-acre suburban lot and building a forest garden around the stumps and brush piles. I've eradicated most of the poison ivy and English ivy that was choking the ground and trees, and I've been sheet-mulching (thank you, Amazon) and hauling in wood chips to the extent I am able. And, wow, is succession ever happening!

I've got baby wild cherry, pine, and redbud seedlings coming up everywhere. Thickly! I don't want the pines or wild cherries getting established (already have too many wild cherries), but I want to take advantage of the redbud seedlings. I was thinking of digging up some of the best-looking ones after they get bigger and planting them strategically in the forest garden, but what about all the rest of them? I mean, these things are coming up really thickly. Should I let them grow to a certain size, then hoe them down, put tarps over them to kill them for the worms, or what?

I've been working so hard to open this lot up to some sun so I can keep adding fruit and nut trees and building guilds, I don't want it to become a shady forest again. But I know those redbuds are valuable, and I want to manage them for the benefit of the wildlife, bees, soil, and family.

Anne Miller wrote:2. What about baking potatoes?  Would the cake Function for that?  Do the potatoes come out like baking in an oven?

I bake potatoes in my Ninja Foodi using the bake function. You can set the temperature to what you want, then set the time for what you want. I put a little oil on the skins. But I really prefer just to cut the potatoes into steak fries and roast them that way, because I'm counting carbs and don't eat a whole potato at once. I can't give you a time, but I believe the recipe book tells you want to do. I've never tried to do baked potatoes in the Instant Pot. Hey, try baking potatoes with the Cake function! What's the worst that could happen?

As far as pasta is concerned, timing will be different depending on what kind you cook. I was used to pressure-cooking semolina pasta on 0 (yes, ZERO) because that seemed to be perfect for al dente pasta. But when I tried cooking ZenB yellow pea pasta, it took a good bit longer. I wasn't happy with how the ZenB macaroni turned out (it fell apart, but it falls apart when I cook it traditionally, too); the rotini and penne did better.

With anything, you just have to experiment. Start with a shorter time and then add more time to it if it doesn't get as done as you want. Better to err on the side of not enough time than too much.

I just cooked fresh collard greens by following a YouTube video. When the guy said "cook at pressure for 5 minutes," I thought that couldn't possibly be right. But it was!

Dennis Barrow wrote:Diane, we just wash the beans, snap them to about 1 inch lengths, pack them in pint jars, fill to about 1 inch of the top, pour hot water over them, (to on inch of top), 20 minutes for pints in the instapot. We have done some quarts and can them for 25 minutes.  We let the instapot release the steam on its own, don't force it.

Fantastic. Just what I needed. And that's especially good info about doing the natural release...I wouldn't have thought to ask that.

Looks easy peasy.

Dennis Barrow wrote:

Diane Kistner wrote:

Dennis Barrow wrote:We have used our Insta-pot for canning green beans, carrots and peas for years.  We just do pints as it is only 2 of us.  

Never had a problem with them.

Dennis, can you share the times you use? And do you start with fresh from the garden? I've got a ton of green beans planted this year and already am feeling very nervous....

Diane,

We will pick the veggies and can them immediately.  It worked that we would have a pint or so ready each evening.

Can you share how you do it for idiots like me? Especially the timing you use. How many minutes on High/Low pressure?

Aimee Hall wrote:My instant pots are the 6 quart size, and I could can 3 pint jars at a time or 7 half pints. It does say it cannot be used for pressure canning low acid foods because the pressure can fluctuate (on high) and most electric pressure cooker manufacturers have stated they have no interest in pursuing FDA approval for pressure canning foods but I hope they change their minds. Especially after the insane amount of work they had to do making the electric pressure canners many times safer than the stovetop models just to be able to bring them to market.

I just tested my 8-quart Instant Pot using the lift-out rack with foldable handles that came with it. I can get 4 pint jars or 6 half-pint jars in it. The handles take up a good bit of space, so if I was using one without handles, it might hold more. Four pints is certainly plenty for me in one canning session. I've also got one of those red silicone flexible racks that might hold more, but I didn't feel like digging it out to test it.

Thank you for the tons of information. You should write a book....

Dennis Barrow wrote:We have used our Insta-pot for canning green beans, carrots and peas for years.  We just do pints as it is only 2 of us.  

Never had a problem with them.

Dennis, can you share the times you use? And do you start with fresh from the garden? I've got a ton of green beans planted this year and already am feeling very nervous....

r ranson wrote:The instant pot instructions say that the pressure doesn't get high enough to can low acid foods.   But it should be able to seal foods that waterbath canning.

But it is so much smaller than my canner.

That's what I figured (waterbath only). But, really, an 8-quart is perfect for me for that because I have a small garden and, in the past, "not having enough to bother with the canner" kept me from canning. After dragging it around with me for years, I finally gave it away. With the Instant Pot, even if I only want to do one jar, it would not be a big deal because I'm always using it anyway.

Awesome post, Aimee.

Aimee Hall wrote:Then I got the model that you could use remotely with bluetooth and the app, and I was thrilled! I am busy, very busy and I could set my things to follow a script. For bone broth, bring it to pressure for 10 minutes, release, cool down, repeat a few times to really extract the goodness from the bones without having to do all of that manually. I literally dumped the prepared ingredients in, locked the lid, selected the saved recipe from my app and it did the rest. This was also fantastic for canning which is what I use the instantpot for most. I have used it to pressure can literally hundreds of thousands of quarts of food I would not have had time to preserve otherwise. I often live alone and the smaller jars work wonders for me and often, all I have to do if I am really out of time is open a jar and eat.

You should start a new thread dedicated to specifics of safe canning in the Instant Pot. I'm not sure what you mean by "smaller jars" (pints? half pints?), but I've got two 8-quart Instant Pots and would definitely be interested in doing some canning in them and learning from you. Waterbath only, or can you also do regular pressure canning? (I've read you can't.) I've got an extra room that I was trying to set up as a woodworking workshop, but I wound up moving my two large Instant Pots in there, along with an induction burner, my sous vide/vac sealer setup and all my canning jars. There's no water, but because the liners of the Instant Pots lift out, that's not a big deal. I keep my Ninja Foodi and Instant Pot Mini in the kitchen, and I use those daily.

You have enticed me with the IP bluetooth/app setup. I didn't realize you could set up scripts with it like that!