When it comes to living in a bus, the one thing you need to do is downsize. And after you are done with that, you need to downsize some more. We had a rice cooker, and a crockpot, and an air fryer, and while we used the rice cooker a lot, the crockpot was too big to make meals for 2 and the air fryer rarely made its way out of storage. So we thought if we got an instant pot, we could essentially downsize from 2-3 appliances to just one.
We ended up finding a GREAT deal at Walmart for a 6-qt Instant Pot Duo. We tried to find a 3-qt but had very little luck and when we did, they cost as much as the larger ones. So as long as it FIT under the floor to store it, we have a nice freezer to put leftovers in 🙂 I purchased this one because it had the features I wanted, and it was $50* with Free Shipping. Black Friday pricing to my door? I’m in!!
So, the first night we tried it (after doing the recommended water test), we found a recipe for using frozen chicken breast, uncooked rice and vegetables. We had the frozen chicken breast and uncooked rice, but we used frozen vegetables instead of fresh. Followed the instructions for cooking and away we went. To Mushy Rice Boulevard. The chicken was cooked great, the vegetables weren’t terrible. There were these pockets of herb bombs that came with some of the vegetables. But a fail 
Pretty sure it was the extra water in the frozen vegetables that caused the excessive mushiness.
That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.
Fast forward to the next night and I decide to make us Sesame Chicken. Halfway through cooking it and I remember our disastrous dinner from the previous night included the last of our white rice. So, Zach offered to go to the one store in town, Dollar General. Where they had no white rice. No brown rice. Just Knorr side dishes, and instantly ready in 90 seconds in the microwave rice. All fine, but… I’m looking to use it with Sesame Chicken :/ So I just tell him to get whatever might go with the meal being made and continue cooking.
He ended up with a Knorr Side dish, herbs and butter, or something like that. Best option.
We really had no clue how to make it in the instant pot, and maybe should have just stove topped it, but we had a new toy, so into the instant pot it went. Like we were making straight up white rice.
It was mushy 
I’m sure this time it was the fact that the rice was pre-cooked in some fashion for quick cooking at home?! Maybe?
((Funny thing is, the next morning… I realized we DO have rice. We have a bag of Sushi Rice. Not sure how that cooks up 
))
So it gets better. Zach LOVES BACON. It’s almost a daily in this house. Normally cooked on the stove in cast iron. Zach decides he’s going to look up how to cook bacon in the Instant Pot. Something about opening and closing it a billion times with 2-3 minute intervals of flipping bacon. And it was a fail. A finish it in the cast iron skillet kind of fail 
I am trying hard boiled eggs in this thing today. So many people rave about this one thing. Hard boiled eggs, easy in the instant pot. For us too??? I’m not into “new” so it may be my unwillingness to give up the pots and pans, but I’m willing to try. Hopefully eggs will win me over. I’m very particular about my eggs 
Stay tuned. I’m determined my next post about the Instant Pot is filled with success !!
*Price as of this post is $50. Regular price listed is $81.99.