The Veggie Queen's e-cookbook Guides You on Your Path to Quick Pressure Cooked meals!

If you are still on the fence about the value of a pressure cooker, invest $12.95 in Jill Nussinow’s e-cookbook, The New FastFood™: The Veggie Queen™ Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30Minutes. Jill, a registered dietitian, known as The Veggie Queen™ presents all the information you need to help you select a pressure cooker (size, pressure settings, lock top), the advantages of pressure cooking (speed, ease, energy savings, taste, nutrition) and of course, dozens and dozens of delicious recipes.

I was especially pleased to find instructions on pressure cooking some unusual grains such as the Ethiopian grain teff and Italian farro. I think my favorite section though, is the dessert chapter. The pressure cooker is usually not the first kitchen tool you think of for dessert, but you would be amazed at the sweet treats that it can produce. Jill includes ten dessert recipes that are totally satisfying yet super healthy because of the grains and fruits that are their foundation.

There are some intriguing ideas presented here on why pressure cookers are more popular in Europe and why some of the best pressure cookers are manufactured there. Jill presents the theory that the availability of fast food and processed foods in the U.S. made the speed of pressure cooking less necessary. Europeans, without those “conveniences” took to pressure cooking more readily, to solve the problem of getting meals on the table quickly. And because pressure cooking was always more popular there, European cookers were manufactured to higher standards, with better materials (steel instead of aluminum) and with more innovations (spring valves instead of “jigglers” to release pressure). German pressure cookers by Fissler, such as Fissler’s Blue Point, are a good example.

So, visit Jill’s website (where you will find some preview recipes) and get a copy of The New Fast Food™ and then find the right pressure cooker from Fissler!

Is time spent in the kitchen, hard on your feet and legs? WellnessMats to the rescue!

The Fissler Foodies spend a lot of time in the kitchen. Not because we have to, but because we love to. We cook to live and we live to cook. Sometimes we pull out the portable CookStar Induction Pro and cook with friends at the dining table. But even that means prep time standing on the hard kitchen floor. When we were given a WellnessMat recently we wondered why we hadn't thought of getting one before. WellnessMats are polyurethane mats that are medically proven to promote proper circulation and reduce fatigue. 

We are kind of into the technical side of things, so we rather enjoyed reading this explanation of why WellnessMats work the way they do: "WellnessMats feature a remarkably elastomeric and resilient core, that offers 50% more cushioning than other mats in the category, making them dramatically different from other anti-fatigue mats on the market today. Advanced Polyurethane Technology (APT) allows WellnessMats cushiony core to permanently bond with the abrasion, stain, and microbial resistant outer layer.  Called cross-linking, the polyurethane molecules permanently bond through a process called thermosetting.  What that means is that the mats will never delaminate and that the unmatched comfort and longevity of all WellnessMats are permanently locked into every fiber." 

Okay, thank you WellnessMats for the high tech details. What we can tell you from personal experience is that our legs and feet immediately felt better when we were standing at the counter or washing dishes. Sometimes we even walk through the kitchen just to stand on it!

You can get your own Wellness Mat through Williams Sonoma, Frontgate, Chefs and hundreds of specialty retailers across the country, as well as at the WellnessMats site. They come in different sizes, colors and surface patterns to match your kitchen and your cookware.