There is precisely one thing I like about winter: I like my pressure cooker. I have an old-fashioned Presto cast-aluminum four-quart pressure cooker with Bakelite handles and a big whistle on the top that tells you when your world is about to end, made by the National By-God Pressure Cooker Company of Eau Claire Wisconsin, U.S.A. Ian and/or Landlady got it at a flea market and gave it to me in answer to my complaints that I can’t cook beans at high altitude. Pressure cookers are the answer to that problem.
But they’re also good for anything, anything at all, that involves intense heat. See, water boils here at a mere 200o F., which means stews are also a bit of a problem. But the Presto can heat water to the boiling point of frickin’ tungsten, and the toughest cheap-ass meat from the sorriest IGA in the land will meekly submit.
And that’s where what was left of Bob ended up. He went from a proudly-feathered prince of the chicken yard to a respectable roast, and from there to a pile of disconnected gray bones dipped out of a pressure cooker full of chicken stock. And then we added potatoes and onion and corn, the leavings of a darned good beef soup with barley, carrots and celery and a cup of brown rice for body, and stewed that bad boy again.
And I would have taken a picture, but you’ve seen a picture of a pot of stew.
I only do it in winter because a gallon of stew will last me two or three days but not in the summer heat. Uncle Joel has a god-like pressure cooker, but he doesn’t have a refrigerator.
I understand if you add a little vinegar to the pot, it increases the nutritional value.
http://www.rural-revolution.com/2013/12/canning-turkey-stock.html