What if the secret to healthier and cost-effective eating habits lies in a revolutionary kitchen gadget? That's right - it's time to swap those fast food menus for the Instant Pot. This clever device is not just about making cooking a breeze; it’s about empowering you to take control over what goes into your body. From perfecting rice and beans to comfort food like mac & cheese, we'll guide you through our favorite recipes and tips to make the most of this culinary wizard.
But it doesn't stop at cooking. We're diving into the nitty-gritty of knowing what really goes into our food and how it can lead to healthier decisions. We're unraveling the hidden costs of eating out and why a cup of homemade coffee can be better (and cheaper) than your regular coffee shop brew. From the art of selecting quality ingredients at ethnic markets and farmers' markets to making your grocery shopping more efficient, we're taking you on a journey to transform your kitchen habits. Tune in and discover a whole new way of healthy living with the Instant Pot.
What if the secret to healthier and cost-effective eating habits lies in a revolutionary kitchen gadget? That's right - it's time to swap those fast food menus for the Instant Pot. This clever device is not just about making cooking a breeze; it’s about empowering you to take control over what goes into your body. From perfecting rice and beans to comfort food like mac & cheese, we'll guide you through our favorite recipes and tips to make the most of this culinary wizard.
But it doesn't stop at cooking. We're diving into the nitty-gritty of knowing what really goes into our food and how it can lead to healthier decisions. We're unraveling the hidden costs of eating out and why a cup of homemade coffee can be better (and cheaper) than your regular coffee shop brew. From the art of selecting quality ingredients at ethnic markets and farmers' markets to making your grocery shopping more efficient, we're taking you on a journey to transform your kitchen habits. Tune in and discover a whole new way of healthy living with the Instant Pot.
Do you ever lift your head up from your phone, look around and think to yourself my God, everything is weird. Well, we do A lot. This is the Observation Station, a unique, entertaining and hilarious podcast. If we observe it, we talk about it. Anything and everything, anything and everything. Let's get weird and let's have some fun. This is the Observation Station and now your host, tommy Heights.
Speaker 2:
Everybody. Welcome back to the Observation Station. I'm your host, tommy Heights. Today we're diving into something that's going to make you taste buds dance in your kitchen time obsolete because you don't need to be in the kitchen all day. This is the Instant Pot. We're talking about the kitchen gadget that, basically, is the superhero cooking.
Speaker 2:
The reason I wanted to make this episode is nowadays, going out to eat is extremely expensive. I myself love going out to eat. Even when I go out to eat, the food isn't even as good as it used to be, which is kind of the thing of. They're charging more for smaller portions and lower quality. It's like it's a triple threat of shit. I had to make it where. It's like okay. The home is now where I need to be cooking more.
Speaker 2:
Not only is it healthier, you can see what ingredients you're putting into the food A lot of times. Now the restaurants are cutting into a lot of different profit schemes where they're trying to put fake additives in the food just so they can cut it, to not have to pay as much for certain ingredients. That's not good for humans. The consumption of many of these ingredients that they put inside of the foods here in the United States are actually banned in many countries Nowadays. Let's just try to have it where we eat healthier control, what it is that we're trying to put into our bodies so that nowadays the health is important more than ever before. After a pandemic where a lot of people that did not have an immune system set up to be resilient to different factors of influenza that has never been out there before. You need to have an immune system that's strong, eat correctly.
Speaker 2:
I'm going to be going over some things here. In the first segment we're going to kind of go over the Instant Pot phenomenon. What it is about, why it is that you should be taking a look at purchasing one. It's not that hard. Amazon has a million of the different models and big, small, any size that you would like. You think I mean what's the big deal with this Instant Pot? Well, it's a Swiss Army knife of your kitchen. It's sautes, pressure cooks, low cooks, and it's like having a chef that doesn't talk back. It's a game changer.
Speaker 2:
I've been doing a lot of rice and beans. The way that you do the rice and beans is like myself. I have Hispanic roots. This is a staple food. You just toss in some of the rice. You rinse a lot of the starches out of the rice by having it where you rinse, rinse, rinse, rinse at the start of the meal. That gets the starches out of the rice so you don't have maybe a different texture. That's maybe not consistent with something that you're used to in a restaurant. Now we're trying to make it where we're recreating. That now Take a little bit of time just to prepare, because the Instant Pot, once you have it where it's cooking, it's like you just have to sit back.
Speaker 2:
It's a set it and forget it kind of thing. You add a little garlic, a little bit of maybe some bay leaves and you just hit the rice button. For you know it's like four minutes, four minutes and then from there you have a 10 minute, what's called a natural release. The natural release is after it's done, preheating and cooking. So after cooking once at whatever time it is. So say, you set your rice for four minutes of cooking time in the rice preset From there. Then you don't have it on the key. There's a keep warm function where it just obviously keeps your food warm in there. You don't want that on necessarily for this. You want to have it for rice where it's just left in natural release where you just don't touch it. It's ended already 10 minutes and then from there there's a pressure release valve. You click it and then all the different steams that were built up inside of the pressure cooker itself starts spewing out of the top. There, the last of it, and then you're ready to go. You just fluff it up a little bit by taking a, maybe a plastic spoon or something like that, or a plastic mixing whatever it is, just to fluff up the rice. A lot of times you can add so many things. I like to do kimchi, so fermented cabbage is actually very good for the digestive system, which, along with like sauerkraut also, you need to be having it where these foods are in your daily diet so that when you are getting older it does help a digestion.
Speaker 2:
It's not like when we were in high school like I remember those days. It's not like it's even was good for you in high school and you could just bag down like the Cheeto bags. They're like huge king size, mega, like the puffs, and then you'd be having a two liter, a Dr Pepper Coke just straight out the bottle. You wouldn't even have it where you're getting a glass, because you're like why am I. You're savage when you're in high school, especially when it's like back in the day. I mean, now things are just super expensive. I remember having it where you'd go to the gas station. It's 79 cents for a two liter bottle of pop or soda. Amazing what it is nowadays, just to have it for just a couple of things. When you go to the grocery store it's like why is this 60 bucks for like a banana, two cans of beans, some milk and some other stuff? It's like what the heck's going on here.
Speaker 2:
So another easy thing to do is Instant Pot Mac and Cheese. So nobody says they don't like Mac and Cheese. I mean, let's get real here to comfort food. So you just throw in some pasta, you have some water, salt, just get the. You know the time. I don't know there's there's timing differences for each one of the different recipes. So there might be where you're cooking it for five minutes, letting it release for 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:
These are the different things that I'm just trying to brainstorm ideas with you as a listener to say, hey, look, this is a jack of all trades. Not only do you have it where you can get on like a chat GPT and say, hey, what are some brainstormed recipes with these ingredients. You could even put like the ingredients of da da da, like you know, say lentils and peas. What are some other extras I could put in there and it'll tell you on chat GPT. Well, if you have lentils and peas, you might want to add this food that would complement that. You know those two foods. It's all about being creative.
Speaker 2:
You can get a lot of cheap food, especially like lentils are very cheap, rice is cheap, beans, all that stuff, especially one of the big things that I've been figuring that is very, very helpful, for me at least, is going to an ethnic, like a global grocery market, because a lot of times they have pretty reasonable prices there, no matter even inflation, and it's a lot better quality food. I like to go. There's an Indian market, actually that's based out of Chicago, but there's one down here in Florida called Patel Brothers. They have great Indian products. It's just a place where you get, you know, good prices. Especially if you want proper rice, you go to Patel Brothers. There's certain things that I mean. Sometimes, if you go to Whole Foods, you're like, oh my God, this is organic, smorganic, you know whatever it is, but you're paying out the wazoo. When you go to Patel Brothers you get great prices, a lot of different little Indian desserts. They're not going to be any regular grocery store, so you know I like to get samosas too. At the checkout counter they have samosas. If you don't know what that is, it's really just a big pastry that has spices and I think it's like chickpeas inside of it. But I really think that Farmers markets, too, are the ways to go now, especially when you're supporting a local business.
Speaker 2:
Plus, nowadays I was reading about how much food is faked and I'll give you an example. Honey is faked a lot. If you wanna have a local honey that is around, like you know your farmer's market that says hates within, I don't think, 30 miles or 60 miles or something about where you're at. That's supposed to be very good, but you know it's fresh. So maple syrup is another one that's faked. A lot of times it says, oh, this is, you know, maple syrup. That's not. They don't say pure, they just say 100% maple syrup and they might be actually fake. I didn't even know about that, I was just reading about it. It just is something where you have to see the ingredients now if it has any extras and additives. All it really needs to say on maple syrup is or like maple syrup, that's all it needs, just like water. You don't wanna have it where it says water, extra chemicals. I mean sometimes you have electrolytes, but I'm just kind of being within reason.
Speaker 2:
When there's a lot of additives put onto foods, you have to second guess yourself. What is this that's being put into here? That's gonna either add something that's not good for me or just trying to mimic a flavor because you know that's what my palate asks for. So a lot of things have to come down with what diet you're trying to stick to. Also, because there's some people that have it, where maybe they have dietary reasons of saying, okay, well, I don't wanna have these kinds of meats and these kinds of foods. I'm a vegetarian. It's a beautiful thing about this is you can say, okay, I want to look at vegetarian dishes for the Instant Pot. Creativity is really the key I'm talking about, ladies and gentlemen, when it comes down to having it where you go.
Speaker 2:
Okay, look at the prices of going out to eat. I still am scarred by going to a sandwich shop and being charged $30 for a small little sandwich cut in half there sandwich and a 12 ounce like mango smoothie $28. They want a tip. I'm nearly like going. There's no way that this is the right price and you don't even really see the prices on the. That's how you know it's an expensive place, like when you go to a sandwich shop or a barbecue place and they don't even show the prices on there. They're always just absurd. You know, I had it like where it was like a pulled pork sandwich. I'm like how's this pulled pork sandwich like $15 and there's literally like zero pork inside, and then the quality was the same that I would get way back in the day at a high school football game for like $2 and it'd be like some 10 year old scoop and some shitty pulled pork in there. That was the quality I'd get for two bucks versus like 14 or 15 in Miami here, which is just absolute criminal robbery. I mean you should put these people in jail. I can't believe they charge that much for some of this food out here. It's amazing Nowadays.
Speaker 2:
Like the pizzas too, you order like a large pizza. You know, even pizza hut is like $25, $26 for a large. Or thinking, oh my God, like by the time you're done getting a couple of pizzas and some sodas, breadsticks and wings or whatnot. You're like $75 in with delivery tip, anything else. I mean especially if you're ordering off Uber Eats. You got a bunch of fees there, so it's a never ending just time of trying to say is it worth going out to eat or is it worth staying at home, doing it where it's simple, because a lot of people say they don't have time to cook.
Speaker 2:
That is the point of this episode. It is alleviating all the modern problems of not having time. You just have to get a couple of staple recipes. That is the point of this. If you like to have it where you make, you know, like they said, no, the mac and cheese or rice and beans, maybe those are your staples. There's a trillion different combinations out there. That's the whole point of having it where you have access to, you know, the internet or YouTube videos. Youtube actually helps us way more than is really being utilized out there right now when it comes down to just basic kind of trying to be a handy person around the house saying okay. So sometimes people say, okay, put it on this preset or that preset. Well, when you see somebody, maybe on YouTube having it where they have three different models of different brands. Maybe one brand is better at making this kind of dish versus the other brand is better better at making vice versa.
Speaker 2:
You know, I'm just trying to give you ideas to say, look, the pressure cooker is the new crock pot. A lot of people liked the crock pot because you could just set it, forget it for like six hours, have a meal and just kind of have it for leftovers and whatnot. I'm the kind of guy to say let's make this as easy as possible for many people to grasp on, not having a whole learning curve of what to do when it comes to just getting the Instant Pot itself. Not being overwhelmed, really, with all the different functions and features of the pressure cooker. Some are more basic, some are a lot more in depth. But now it's the time to say, look, I need to be a chef at home. I can't be telling myself I'm not a chef, you know, don't even know how to cook eggs and all this other stuff. Just get it together. Really, this is just some bullshit.
Speaker 2:
It's like the people that go to Starbucks all the time spending. Now that I mean they're raising the prices again. Your damn coffee is gonna be like $8, $9 a day going to get your coffee and people are like I don't have the machines, I don't know how to make. Stop with the bowl, and especially with as much as you make a hissy fit about not having the machines. Take a look at how much you spend on a monthly basis over $300, definitely on Starbucks. Over 300, definitely on Starbucks. I mean, look, you're not having it where. You're gonna go to Starbucks once and say oh yeah, and that $9 coffee, that was good, let me do that every five days a week. You're spending over like 300 bucks. You could get a masterfully crafted Italian espresso machine that has like stainless steel or like a Ferrari red paint, for 350 or 600 bucks for a single use, one at home or something like that. I mean we're not looking to have it where.
Speaker 2:
This is a. You know you're a barista, but there's a lot of ways to save money and coffee is a big one too Just for an instant thing. The coffee is instant really. It's not saying it's folgers. It doesn't take 10 years. Make the coffee at home. If you don't have time, then get up early. If you don't have the energy that's what the coffee's for Then what the hell are we talking about. It's just a constant BS game with these people. So I mean, look there, you have it, folks. So I mean, look the Instant Pot's just it's a kitchen gadget to culinary revolution.
Speaker 2:
And this is what I'm just trying to say hey, let's start having it where we make our own food and try not to eat so much artificial junk. Now that if you start reading and what these companies are just trying to fly by all of us and say, oh yeah, this is super healthy. It's really not. And it's like. I'm not trying to be a conspiracy theorist, though a lot of times people just don't care to read what they're ingesting into their own body. We only get one body. Take care of it now. Don't put yourself in a position of saying that, oh, I just need to have quick food. Let me do the drive through every single time that you just don't wanna make food. This is the time to do things on your own and be independent. So all right.
Speaker 2:
Well, next episode is gonna be just kind of on the. This is what I'm gonna go over. It's gonna be the self-reflection as a growing man. So the self-reflection as a growing man is gonna really be going over the trials and tribulations of at least my life, what I've seen to this point. Many things right now on social media are very negative, saying how you should be better or you're broke or you're this. They're putting you in a box. So the way that I'm gonna have it is just to show you look, this is where I've been before in my mind, now that I'm growing, this is where I wanna be at. So the whole point is you're either living or dying. So I wanna be growing into a man that a lot of people would like to be around. Have a friend, be right there if they have a problem, not have it where you're getting under people's skin. That's the best thing that I could ask for for anybody is to just be a good friend, a mentor and just always there for people. So all right, guys. Well, till next time.
Speaker 2:
Gonna be here this Friday with that next episode, but just wanted to again. As always, thank you guys for just sitting around here. I love it. When I do these episodes. The more and more I get more comfortable of just talking in the mic here. Not even 50 episodes, yet Every time there's another 10 episodes, it just sounds like things are getting a little bit smoother and cleaner. So thanks for joining me on this journey. And this little side note at the end Take it easy, have a good one, make some meals and just keep smiling. All right, bye-bye everybody.
Speaker 1:
You've been listening to the Observation Station. We find everyday life and everyday situations hilarious. We hope you've enjoyed the show. We know we had a blast. Make sure to like, rate and review, and be sure to tell a friend about the show. That would help too. See you next time on the Observation Station.
