Root Vegetable Stew

I received my first pressure cooker several weeks ago, an early Christmas gift from my great-aunt.  It has sat in the box for most of that time, myself a tad skeptical about my culinary skills versus such a device.  I remember my grandma having one a long time ago, that thing could practically take the roof off. Not so sure I want to take out my entire block of flats for a few beans.  That being said, I have heard some great things about these newfangled electric pressure cookers, but my slight fear was winning out for a while until i decided to be brave and give it a whirl.  I chose something semi easy for my first try.

My root vegetable stew.  This generally takes a couple of hours on the stove or 4-8 hours in the slow cooker depending on settings.  Could this really do it any better?  The vegetables in this particular dish can change each time I make it, just depends what I have in at the time.  But it is hearty and filling no matter what the combination.

Ingredients:
12 carrots, sliced
3 parsnips, sliced
2 small turnips, cut into chunks
1 sweet potato, cut into chunks
A bunch of small potatoes, chopped into chunky pieces
1 can diced tomatoes
2 cups vegetable broth
3 cloves of garlic, finely diced
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp basil

Directions:
Pour the broth into the bottom of the pressure cooker pot.  Add the other ingredients.
Pressure cook for 15 minutes, and release the steam at the end of that time.

Now, the scariest part is when releasing the steam, and that’s not even all that scary and nothing blew up or exploded so I consider that a success.  If you are new to pressure cooking, that 15 minutes is not quite accurate.  It takes some time to get up to pressure and then the timer starts counting down from there.  However, it is mostly hands off and being able to have a full stew ready in 30 minutes start to finish (including the prep) that is kind of a good deal.