In her new cookbook, A Steamy Affair with a Pressure Cooker: Recipes, Stories & Saucy Suggestions, Guilford home cook Virginia Baltay entices even the most reluctant chef to join the pressure cooker movement. Her lifelong passion — captured in recipes, color photos, stories, and tricks of the trade — unfolds whimsically in this new, hardcover volume, available online at www.pressurecookeraffair.com.
To celebrate the launch of A Steamy Affair with a Pressure Cooker, Baltay will present a three-part series of online classes through Shoreline Adult Education, including:
- An Introduction to the Pressure Cooker (October 21, 7-8pm)
- Getting Comfortable with Your Pressure Cooker (October 28, 7-8pm)
- The Wonders of Pressure Cooking (November 4, 7-8pm)
For more information and to register, visit www.shorelineadulted.org.
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A Steamy Affair with a Pressure Cooker is a timely addition to any kitchen. With the rise in popularity of stovetop models and the Instant Pot, bloggers and foodies alike are enthusiastic about the ease of the pressure cooker's instant, quick meals. So is Baltay, who presents the modern pressure cooker as a simple solution to healthy, fast, economical meals.
Her colorful, 244-page cookbook is an essential primer to the nuances of pressure cooking:
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- Take the Pressure Cooker Virgin Test
- Find your soul mate—stovetop or digital Instant Pot
- Say “I Do” to the PC Oath for safety and success
- Begin your affair with an Outrageous O! (You know you want to.)
- Enjoy stimulating color photos and more than 100 sexy, simple recipes for main dishes & entrees, soups, veggies, desserts and more
- Learn Techniques and Tricks of the Trade to strengthen skills
- Experiment with luscious, fresh, all-natural ingredients
- Get Matchmaker Advice about performance, efficiency and positive PC vibes.
Baltay truly wants home chefs to love the pressure cooker just as she has for the past 60 years. Over the decades, she has created more than 15,000 pressure cooked meals, growing her expertise with each appealing soup, stew, and dessert.
But A Steamy Affair with a Pressure Cooker is not just a cookbook. It is also a culinary memoir that spans from Baltay’s World War II childhood in Middletown, New York to modern-day reflections about terrorism, sustainability, and nutrition.An award-winning teacher, curriculum designer, grant writer and photographer, Baltay retired in 2010 and moved on to an intense involvement in environmental outreach and citizen science, notably winning grants and developing materials for the educational programs at Outer Island, a unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge.
Her professional life has always co-existed with her family and her life in the kitchen. Cooking is a daily outlet for her creativity with the pressure cooker. She has raised a remarkable brood of five children and is blessed with 13 grandchildren, and a long marriage. With skill and imagination, she has entertained vast numbers of family and friends, always following her beloved mantra: “Be clever; prepare quick, healthy, tasty meals and everyone is happy.” Baltay hopes home chefs will fall in love with pressure cooking, just like she did!
Copies of A Steamy Affair with a Pressure Cooker are available for $29.99 from www.pressurecookeraffair.com.