Fagor U Cook 7-Piece Deluxe Pressure Cooker Set Review

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(More customer reviews)This set is really easy to use and is worth the price, and I highly recommend it. The 18/10 stainless steel pots are heavy, durable, they perform well when searing, and cleaning them is a breeze (see manual for cleaning instructions). In addition to the pressure lid, the set includes a glass lid that fits both pots, a steamer basket with trivet, and a pasta basket. So the pots can be used for purposes other than pressure cooking. The set also includes a really nice recipe book and detailed instructions on use and care.
The pressure cooker lid is easy to lock, just line up the marks on the lid and handle, rotate the lid and lock it in place. I wasn't really clear on how to determine when the cooker is under pressure. The directions say when you see a steady stream of steam for the first time, reduce the heat to maintain it. However, when doing a trial run with just water in the pot, the cooker clearly wasn't under pressure when the first steady steam appeared, however, I followed the directions and lowered the heat but could still remove the lid after a few minutes.
I checked to make sure the gasket was seated properly and that the lid was on correctly and tried it again with the same result. I let the water boil for a few minutes and removed it from the heat and turned the dial for quick release of pressure. No steam was released, and I could remove the lid so no pressure. For the next trial run, I waited until the indicator popped up over high heat, then lowered the heat. This time after removing the pot from the heat, steam was released when I set the dial to quick release.
I have used the pressure cooker a few times now and wait until the indicator pops up before lowering the heat. The first thing I actually cooked was converted rice. I started timing when the indicator popped up and 10 minutes later (7 with pressure, 3 without) perfect fluffy rice! My next venture was chicken wings (10). I deep fried them in the 6 quart pot (no lid) until brown, poured off the oil, added 1/2 cup of water, placed the wings in the steamer basket, put the pressure lid on, and cooked them 5 minutes under pressure. I let the pressure release naturally before removing the wings from the pot which was about another 2-3 minutes. Seems like a lot for chicken wings but they were delicious!
Let me add, DO NOT attempt to pressure fry chicken in hot oil in the pressure cooker! There are a lot of recipes on the internet that try to mimic the Kernel's fried chicken which is cooked under pressure but that's done using a commerical grade pressure FRYER. Pressure cookers like this one are not designed for pressure frying, and the results of boiling hot oil under pressure can be disastrous.
If you decide to purchase this set or another, make sure you read all of the instructions and tips before using it. If you are new to pressure cooking and are a little apprehensive about the process like I was, you may want to either buy a book on the topic or check one out from the library. I started with the book by Lorna Sass, Pressure Perfect. The Jiffy Meatballs with Tomato Sauce is delicious!


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New from Fagor, the 7 piece U Cook deluxe pressure cooker set is fast, easy and healthy cooking. Made of 18/10 stainless steel the set includes a 4 and 6 quart nesting pots, a pressure cooker lid that fits both pots, a glass lid that fits both pots, a steamer basket / food grater, a pasta basket, a Tastefully Under Pressure Full Color Cookbookand easy to follow instruction manual.Perfect for all types of cook tops it can be used on gas, electric, ceramic or induction stoves. As with all Fagor pressure cookers, it has a triple safety mechanism, a pressure control valve, a safety lock on the handle that prevents accidental opening under pressure, two independent over-pressure release valves and a visual pressure indicator and automatic pressure release valve. The 6 quart pot supports thesteamer basket/pasta insert which on the bottom also doubles as a food grater The lid is made of tempered glass for easy viewing and it all comes with a " Tastefully Under Pressure" full color cookbook.

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Manttra 39001 Chef-Xpress 8-Quart Stainless Steel Electric Multi-Cooker Review

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(More customer reviews)I tried two of these ... returned the first due to a screw head from bottom heating element protruding not slightly ... but enough to crease the bottom of the stainless steel pot. Felt this could be a problem in the future for a pot that undergoes pressure. Also, this unit would not seal. Top did not fit bottom of pan, regardless of gasket.
Second unit I tried would, also, not even come close to sealing. Top turned too far and had to stand there and apply pressure to get my meal done. Luckily, could return this one also. Done with this model!!!

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This is not just a pressure cooker. The Chef-Xpress is a multi functional unit that is a stock pot, vegetable and shellfish steamer, pasta cooker, pressure cooker and more! It can be used for steaming, braising, simmering, roasting, stewing and even defrosting. Pressure cooking is the fastest, easiest and healthiest way to prepare your favorite foods. Cook delicious meals up to 70% faster than traditional cooking methods. Simply load ingredients, lock the lid, begin cooking and walk away. The Chef-Xpress will shut itself off once the cooking cycle is complete. Plus, it will go to keep warm mode for up to 4 hours. Cook without oils while retaining important vitamins and minerals. Chicken, beef, fish, beans vegetables, soups and more cook to perfection in record time! Set includes; 8Qt. stainless steel stock pot, stainless steel pressure lid, tempered glass lid, stainless steel steamer/pasta insert and trivet. 9 state of the art safety features makes cooking worry-free. Select from 2 pressure settings; high or low. Includes Visual Pressure Indicator and One-Touch quick steam release, browning mode and more. Instructions and recipe book included. UL approved.

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Tomato, Blossom Set Ready to Spray Review

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(More customer reviews)The first thing to note about this product is the health hazard warning about not getting it on your skin. It is not printed on Amazon, but it should be. It is scary to me that you should not allow this to contact your skin, but you are supposed to spray it on food you will eventually eat.
But, I still tried it because of an early blossom drop problem and reading how great Kinetin is as a product (research clearly shows a benefit). I have to believe that Kinetin works, but I believe this product is a huge waste of money, primarily because of the application medium.
So, the biggest weakness of this product is the application bottle. It sprays the bulk of the product into the wind and onto your skin, which appears unavoidable, so wear rubber gloves if concerned. It says to spray it until the flowers and leaves in the vicinity of the flowers are wet. As you do this, you watch almost all the product fly off into the air. This bottle is the same as you would get for a pump hair spray and spreads the product all over the place. Great if you were applying it to your hair, but wasteful and foolish if applying it to a set of blossoms on a tomato plant.
The larger bottle looks better, so you may want to get the larger size if you believe in the product. Or you can do what I did and move it to a decent application spray bottle that doesn't send your $$ into the wind. But then, you may consider that bottle contaminated because of the health warning.
My results were spotty at best. I did not really notice more tomatoes setting or any real noticeable benefit. I did note that after the spray application, flowers opened to a full salute. That was very encouraging at first. But after a couple of applications, the flowers did not seem to be doing any better than flowers I did not apply the product to. It just seemed to stimulate them short term.
I found that a much better use of my money was a high phosphate fertilizer specifically made to enhance blooming. There is one available here on Amazon that is quite good (and is the brand I tried) that has a rating of 12-55-6. Within one week of application of this fertilizer, my plants had new flowers busting out everywhere.
To conclude, when it comes to flowers leading to tomatoes, the key is more flowers which inherently leads to more tomatoes. Spraying individual flowers with a blossom set spray may work, but having more flowers is key. If you lose a small percentage that do not set, it just plain does not matter, but if you can stimulate more flowers, you will have more fruit.
As far as the product goes. For the money, they need a better applicator, better instructions, and they should print the health hazard warning so you can read it BEFORE you spend your money. And try a good bloom fertilizer first if you are having problems with your tomatoes blooming or with blossom drop. It is a much cheaper and more effective solution.

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543 Features: -Tomato, blossom set ready to spray. -Makes blossoms set fruit despite poor weather. -Nearly every blossom will produce larger, meatier, almost seedless tomatoes, ripening up to 3 weeks earlier. -Also for use on other vegetable plants. -Contains natural growth hormone Kinetin. -Ready to use pump. -8 oz.

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Nordic Ware Microwave Tender Cooker 2.5 Quart Review

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(More customer reviews)This is great for busy people. It cooks like a slow cooker in just a half-hour. I had one of these for 4 years and my kids broke the lid. I found I have favorite recipes that just don't taste right cooked in anything else. I highly recommend it.

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The most asked for microwave accessory.Works as a pressure cooker and holds 3 pounds of meat, 2.5 quarts of liquid.Tenderizes, cooks and flavors meat, poultry and vegetables in 30 minutes or less. Requires 8.5 inch clearance in your microwave oven. 9.5 x 9.5 x 8.25 inches.Proudly made in the USA by Nordic Ware.

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Fagor 9 Piece Pressure Canning Set Review

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(More customer reviews)Pressure canned apple butter, in pints and half pints, using the Duo 10-quart pressure cooker/canner and very satisfied with its performance. The spring-style pressure mechanism is very quiet compared to the rocker style, and the psychological effect is less like a rocket launch and more like using ordinary cookware. The solid-bottomed 18/10 stainless steel has a beautiful, mirror-like finish and is compatible with induction range tops (Fagor manufactures induction ranges). The pressure slide did hang up one time, and the cooker wouldn't pressurize, but with persistence the slide goes in with a little wiggling. The 10-quart Duo holds four pint or five half-pint jars on the slightly undersized canning rack - a reasonable load for the home canner. The stainless steel ladle and funnel look great and are almost as solid as the cooker. The stainless steel funnel can be submersed in boiling water, and although that's not really necessary with pressure canning, why not kill bacteria when you can? The magnetic lid lifter is a great tool if you are boiling the lids, also not necessary except for water bath canning, but if you're rinsing the funnel in boiling water, why not throw in the lids for good measure? Haven't used the jar wrench because you only tighten lids finger tight when pressure canning. The bubble freer is a useful tool and the jar lifter is a must -- it's great to get all the tools as a set. As a pressure cooker, the Fagor Duo 10-quart can handle anything you can throw into it. Brown a pot roast, throw in two cans of mushroom soup, a packet of onion soup, a cup of water, pressurize and an hour later you have a pot roast with fabulous sauce. Vegetables should go in later or above the roast in the optional steamer insert to avoid turning them into mush. The manual is well written and the DVD features a couple of professional chefs who do a terrific job of showing how easy it is to pressure cook various dishes, including grains and cheesecake. The video hosts are charming and natural, and the DVD gets five stars for taking the fear and mystery out of pressure cooking.

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Home Canning is a healthy way to fill your pantry with home cooked, preservative-free recipes such as soups, vegetables, baby food and so much more! This all-in-one kit includes the tools, instructions and recipes necessary in order to begin pressure cooking & canning at home. Set IncludesDuo 10 quart 18/10 stainless steel Pressure Cooker/Canner,Home Canning Cookbook with recipes,Pressure Cooking Booklet with recipes, Canning Rack, Stainless Steel Funnel, Stainless Steel Ladle, Jar Lifter, Jar Wrench, Bubble Freer, Magnetic Lid Lifter, Instructional DVD and User’s Manualuctional DVD• User’s Manual

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All-American 15-1/2-Quart Pressure Cooker/Canner Review

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(More customer reviews)When I first ordered this canner, I wasn't sure if I would be able to maintain a steady pressure with my "pulsating" flat-top stove. With the thick aluminum walls, I have no problems at all. In fact, with such thick walls, I can put the burner on "high" and it will slowly build up pressure so I don't have to stand over the stove and constantly monitor as the pressure increases. Once at pressure, it is very easy to maintain the required pressure without having to constantly vent off excess pressure. The owner's manual recommends one to four jiggles per minute. It takes longer for this canner to cool down than others due to the thick walls. I factor this in to my processing time. It will maintain it's pressure (15 psi) for almost another 10 minutes with the burner off. This canner is designed to fit 7 quart jars perfectly. If your looking for a canner, this is it!

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Heavy Cast Aluminum Pressure Cooker/Canner

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Fagor 670040230 Stainless-Steel 3-in-1 6-Quart Multi-Cooker Review

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(More customer reviews)I've been using my Fagor 3-in-1 multi-cooker for a few months now and have really enjoyed it. I've tried all 3 functions. For the rice cooker function, I like it but the rice comes out a little stickier than we're used to. I've tried cutting back on the amount of water and that seems to help. But I typically just use my old rice cooker because the multi-cooker is already in use making the main dish. For the slow cooker function, it seems to cook at a slightly lower temperature than even the low setting on regular slow cookers. The food gets done, but meats aren't as "falling apart" as they are in my old slow cooker. But maybe that's a good thing since they're not overcooked. Depending on what I'm making, sometimes I use the multi-cooker and sometimes I use my old one. The multi-cooker is 6 qts, but is taller and has a smaller diameter than most slow cookers. So it wouldn't work well for a big flat piece of meat like a brisket. Also, the multi-cooker is teflon coated, so if I'm making something that I will need to use my immersion blender on, I use my old slow cooker with the corning-ware insert. Another small problem with the multi-cooker is that even though the insert is removable, it's not very good for putting the ingredients in the night before and putting in the fridge until you're ready to cook. There's no handles to grab it by and there's no lid just for the insert. Because there are no handles, it's also very difficult, and dangerous, to lift it out after cooking to pour the food into a serving dish. The function I was most nervous about was the pressure cooker. I had never had a pressure cooker before and had visions of horror remembering my mother's and grandmother's disasters. But honestly, once I learned to trust the multi-cooker, it's been great. I didn't know how long it would take to reach pressure, so I would get nervous that it wasn't closed right. But it was fine. You just need to add about 20 minutes to your estimated prep time for it to get up to pressure and start cooking. I was concerned about the 9 psi pressure after reading the other reviews here. I sent an e-mail to Fagor customer service and they actually sent me a page from Miss Vickie's web site that said you need to increase the cooking time by 40% and that you shouldn't use anything less than a 15 psi cooker. I couldn't believe they would send me something that says not to use their product! But it was all the customer service people could offer. Well, it turns out Miss Vickie's web site is wrong. You don't need to increase the cooking time at all, or just a minute or two if it's a long-cooking recipe. The problem is that Miss Vickie based her calculation on the ratio of the pressures (9 being 40% less than 15). But pressure isn't doing the cooking, temperature is. And the ratio of the temperatures is less than 10%. And if you use absolute temperature (according to my engineer husband) the ratio is even less, about 1%. So for a recipe that cooks 10 minutes you would increase it by a few seconds. So now I just use the recommended times in recipes and everything has come out perfectly cooked. I should add that this multi-cooker does not come with a steamer insert, and many pressure cooker recipes, especially for vegetables, require one. It doesn't even seem that Fagor offers one separately. I really like the browning function. It gets very hot and is useful not only for browning ingredients at the beginning but also for getting things boiling at the end of slow cooking so that you can add thickeners like cornstarch or roux. The warming function is nice, too. I've used the cook delay once or twice, but only for an hour or two. Longer would be risky for bacterial growth. So I really like this appliance. I don't think I'll be getting rid of my rice cooker or slow cookers, but they've moved to the basement and the Fagor 3-in-1 multi-cooker has the prize spot on the kitchen counter.
Note: Since writing this comment over a year ago, I have found this silicone vegetable steamer and it works perfectly as a trivet for this pressure cooker. It has firm legs which hold it above the liquid. They were strong enough to hold 4 pounds of brisket. It worked beautifully and cleaned up very nicely.
Chef'n Sleekstor VeggiSteam 8-1/2-Inch Silicone Steamer, Arugula
And I should add that I still love my Fagor 3-in-1 and use it several times a week. I still mainly use it for the pressure cooker function, though. I've found that I really don't need a slow cooker anymore.

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An exceptionally versatile addition to any busy kitchen, this 6-quart multi-cooker offers a variety of functions all in one handy appliance--use it as a rice cooker, a pressure cooker, or a slow cooker. In rice-cooker mode, the unit automatically cooks any type of rice to light, fluffy, restaurant-quality perfection. In pressure-cooker mode, the appliance offers high (9 psi) and low (5 psi) pressure settings for cooking healthy meals in no time. The higher the pressure the faster the results. For peace of mind, the unit's self-locking lid comes with an automatic pressure-release setting, which means the lid won't open until all the pressure inside gets safely released. In slow-cooker mode, the appliance can be used to make delicious pot roasts, soups, and stews. Simply add the ingredients in the morning, set the timer, and dinner will be ready and waiting after a long day at the office. Best of all, the multi-cooker automatically shifts to "keep warm" at the end of any cooking program, keeping food hot and ready to serve without overcooking. Other highlights include a "brown" function for true one-pot cooking, an LED screen with soft-touch control buttons, a programmable eight-hour delay timer, stay-cool handles, overheat protection, and two independent pressure-control valves for added security. When finished, the nonstick cooking pot can be removed for quick cleanup by hand or in the dishwasher. A user manual with 40 delicious recipes comes included. Attractively housed in brushed stainless steel, the ETL-approved multi-cooker measures approximately 12 by 12 by 13 inches.

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Fagor Duo Combi 5-Piece Pressure Cooker Set Review

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(More customer reviews)Fagor is the least expensive brand that I am aware of which also has the 'modern' features desirable in pressure cookers. To learn more about pressure cookers and what is desirable go to missvickie.com (a non-commercial site devoted to pressure cooker enthusiasts.) Some of these features deal with safety, e.g. you don't have to worry about plugging the steam escape with Fagor. Fagor cookers also reach a pressure of 15psi (which is important.) Unless a brand advertises that they do reach 15psi, assume that they don't. I suggest getting an extra gasket when you buy the item as you will need one at one point (they don't last forever). I must also compliment the company on its service. I bought this item, and sent in a rebate form (for a free stock pot). They sent me a nice paella pan by mistake. I was satisfied, however I called them to make sure that there was no mistake. They answered the phone right away (without the common maze of annoyingly slow and complex menu options.) The woman I talked to was very personable. This woman checked on what happened, called me back, and told me that they would also send the stock pot to me, and for me to go ahead and keep the paella pan. I will update this if needed as time goes on, as I have more experience using this item.


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The 5-pc. Duo Combi set includes the 4-qt. and 8-qt. Duo pressure cooking pots, Duo pressure cooker lid, tempered glass lid, steamer/pasta basket with support trivet, user's manual and recipe book. The pots can be used as pressure cookers with the Duo pressure cooker lid, or as regular stockpots by using the glass lid.Features:Triple Safety Mechanism: Triple safety features dual pressure control valve plus two independent over pressure release valves: safety locking handle prevents accidental opening under pressure. UL approved.Quality Construction: 18/10 quality stainless steel construction with impact bonded diffuser base for even heat distribution and fuel efficiency - easy to clean, body is dishwasher safe. Use on all heat sources.Easy Operation: Two pressure settings in a spring valve mechanism operated by a dial format. Set to either Level 1 (low 8.5-psi) or Level 2 (high 15-psi). Visual Indicator lets used know when all pressure has been release. Ergonomically designed handles for easier handling.Attractive Presentation: Comes with user's manual, recipe book and stainless steel steamer basket. Packaged in a full-color gift box.

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