The Secret Society of the Pressure Cooker Sisters

My frequent convenience food is canned beans.  My favorite real food is homemade refried black beans, as in beans I soaked and cooked myself, then refried in olive oil like Wendy Sherman taught me to make when she got back from Guatamala.  Just before she told me to stop dating boys and find a real man.  I was married three months later.  To a real man.  Real men are dangerous that way.

Recently my real man took me to lunch and then to Sur La Table to buy himself a milk steamer implement I still don't understand.  I confessed I really wanted a pressure cooker and then it was mine.

Because, duh, pressure cooker means (presoaked) beans cook in 8-12 minutes.  Still makes my head spin.

Except, I really don't know how to use one.

In college, before Wendy's cooking lesson, my housemate had a pressure cooker.  It was like playing with dynamite, I think they were illegal at the time.  I used to make that potato soup I was living on in hers.  I didn't really know what I was doing.


Somehow, not really knowing what I was doing, I pressure cooked the beans. They might have been a little overcooked, yet still were delish.  I rinsed and wiped the pressure cooker, but I don't really understand it or know how to clean it.  The instructions are useless to me.  I need to find someone to mentor me in this one.

Do you pressure cook? For canning? For what else?