Hello again from this newbie InstantPotter. First of all, many thanks for all the encouragement and advice I received here. Thanks to you, I am an Instant Pot virgin no more!
About a week and a half ago I made my first recipe of 15 bean soup in the manner I described in my above post. Happy to say it turned out very well. I used the 30 minute pressure cook pre-set. When I checked at the end of that cycle, it wasn't anywhere near done--probably because I always start with dried beans (never pre-soak)--so I just did the 30 minute process over again and the results were great! I hesitated to post a photo 'cause, well, it's just a bowl of bean soup, but here it is:
Believe me, it tasted way better than it looks using my sometimey tablet camera. That's a little bit of spicy smoked sausage peeking through bottom left in the bowl since the store didn't have the fresh pork neck bones I wanted.
Next just this past Sunday was my attempt at Coq At Vin and, once again, it turned out great too. My housemates really enjoyed it. We made the meal a collaboration with me doing the Coq Au Vin using the Bon Appetit recipe and mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, one who did creamed spinach and bought a nice loaf of French bread along with some tasty Cabernet Sauvignon and the other, who is Italian did an appetizer of grilled zucchini wrapped around tuna mixture and little apple tarts. The landlord contributed another bottle of wine. Alas, my wonky tablet camera produced this photo of the final dish:
Yikes, it's kinda fuzzy wuzzy wuz a bear looking but it really did taste better than it looks. The chicken was tender and moist, the carrots, mushrooms and shallots were perfectly cooked and, using the saute function, the IP thickened and simmered the sauce after removing the food quickly and easily.
Here's a slightly better photo of the dish plated:
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I will post additional remarks about both recipes and a couple of questions about how the Instant Pot performed in cooking both dishes.
All in all--knocking on wood--very happy with this appliance.
Thanks again for all your help.
Edited to add: I was thinking that my next recipe, after Thanksgiving of course, will be braciole. If any of you have a tried and true IP recipe, please share.
