Earth Day/Birthday Offer

And a little giveaway too.....

favourite tree line in light, gentle rain, with fragrant hawthorn and black bird song.

The first (hopefully, I haven’t written the other one yet) of two posts today but as this one is about gift giving - specifically, me giving to you - I hope you can forgive the spam.

I always mark Earth Day (also my birthday) with a giveaway of some sort. It feels appropriate, because Earth Day is a day which hopefully makes us think more about making our lives more sustainable - and as you all know, pressure cooking is one of the most, if not THE most sustainable ways of cooking there is. Not only that, the methods I have been developing which make the most of residual heat and fuelless cooking after an initial high pressure blast make it even more so.

The theme of this year’s Earth Day is Our Power, Our Planet - a call to make our energy as clean as possible. For most of us as individuals, this means looking at green tarifs as well as being as efficient as possible with our energy usage. In terms of pressure cooking it means the greenest option is an electric pressure cooker OR - and I think this comes out slightly better - using a stove top pressure cooker with an induction hob. If your electricity comes from renewables, so much the better. I still have a gas hob, but made a promise to myself to replace it this year. I am using my portable induction hobs more as a stop gap for all the longer cooks.

I know it is hard not to feel as though any efforts we might make are futile endeavours at the moment, especially when in recents days we have celebrities/billionaires jetting into space and AI guzzling energy at a rate I find quite astounding. But we keep going, and even if our efforts aren’t going to save the planet, at least we have the convenience of cooking in a way that saves us time, money, water as well as hopefully making great tasting food.

So, onto the offers:

Firstly, I wanted to offer all free subscribers the chance to upgrade to paid with a massive 50% discount off both monthly and annual subscriptions. This is a “forever” offer, not just for the year, so it will continue until you decide to no longer subscribe. The discount also makes a subscription a really good, more affordable gift for someone you think might benefit.

Here is the link

As well as this, I am continuing my practice of sending out a copy of Everyday Pressure Cooking to every 10th paid subscriber.

Why become a paid subscriber?

Deriving some income from Substack allows me to devote more time to it. I’ve said this before, but some of these posts take a really long time to research and write - sometimes days, weeks, even months of experimentation. I am always looking for greater efficiency in the way I cook and I like to pass the results of my testing on to you - you can see it evolving in real time on this Substack, most recently with the way I cook beans and pulses. All my posts which delve into methodology will always be free - the ethos of this Substack has to be open access, inclusivity and the sharing of knowledge - but there is always going to be some content, mainly recipes, just for paid subscribers. I hope that if you value the information and recipes I provide - as well the fact that I make myself accessible for all your individual questions, regardless of your subscription status - you will think about making the upgrade. I hear from some of the very kind messages I have had from people who have upgraded, it is this accessibility which has made them do so.

The 50% discount will run for 24 hours only. After that, I am going to run a 30% discount until the end of the month.

Finally, separate to subscription discounts so you will see this mentioned in my second post too -

I am giving away a Tower Pressure Cooker with a copy of Everyday Pressure Cooking.

I bought this model myself to thoroughly test and have been very happy with the way it has performed - it is a really good solid pressure cooker and not just for its price range. So it would make a really useful second pressure cooker (lots of my meals rely on 2 pressure cookers, a second one makes things much easier, logistically) or a good present for someone you want to convert! For a chance to win, drop a comment on this post.

That’s it for now! I’ll be back….