cooking with pressure cooker and slow cooker?

Question

i usually cook in normal pot or pan. what's the difference between cooking this way and cooking in slow or pressure cooker? what are these 2 for and what's the difference between them?

Answer 1

Both the pressure cooker and the slow cooker use a buildup of steamy heat to cook the food inside. The pressure cooker does it much faster and, in my opinion, the food turns out mushier. It's great for canning foods, but I'm not wild about it for cooking a meal. My husband's father had tooth/gum problems and had to eat soft food; his mom basically made the same mushy stew for supper almost every night in the pressure cooker. He hates stew now. My parents canned food using the pressure cooker, and I can still smell the distinctive odor that came from it--yuck. I never liked it. It's as if every nasty (even though natural) element in the food is released in one noxious odor. I taught high school for ten years, and every morning, I walked into the building and smelled that same icky odor--the cafeteria ladies did a lot of cooking with the pressure cooker. It's good for cooking large amounts of food quickly.

On the other hand, I love my slow cooker. Man, I've made some fabulous meals in the slow cooker, meals from all ethnic groups. I can't recommend it highly enough. Most slow cooker recipes are very specific about what size the veggies should be cut up, whether the meat should be browned first, what order the food should go into the cooker, and how long it should cook at what temperature (usually High, Medium and Low). It's really just about foolproof. And that slo-o-w cooking for hours and hours seems to bring out the best elements of each ingredient, then mixes them together into a heavenly combination. The odors that come from my slow cooker are irresistible!

Slow cookers are relatively inexpensive (even if you get a good, large one), they're pretty easy these days to clean up (get a removable ceramic), and they can make cheap cuts of meat and ordinary ingredients taste like a four-star meal. The hardest thing to get used to is the advance planning they require--if a dish takes 6 hours to cook, you have to prep it 6-7 hours in advance. But I like it, because the prep just fits into my morning work routine, and my afternoon and evening is more relaxed.

I recommend you add a slow cooker to your kitchen inventory. There are a number of good slow cooker cookbooks out there; I also get good recipes from the Taste of Home series of magazines (see URL below). If you try it out, let us know how it goes!

Answer 2

pressure cooker cooks things faster because of the pressure.
the lid fits on really tight so when the temp goes up the pressure goes up.

slow cooker (crock pot) cooks things slowly. you plug it in and leave for work for example and it's done when you get home.
you have to leave the lid on for it to build up heat and work.
i use this, i think they're great and a fabulous meal is ready when you get home.