I totally understand the fear of the pressure cooker. I had a great grandma that had one and used it to can things.
Have you tried doing ribs or a small brisket? and used a can of dr. pepper instead of water?
ANSWER: We haven't tried ribs yet and we expect them to come out great with the meat falling off the bone. We did try a large chunk of some beef to make the barbecue beef. Once it was done we just took a fork to the meet and shredded it with a fork since it was falling apart so easily. Then we just added barbecue sauce to the meat and put the WARMER setting to keep it hot. Then served on rolls for barbecue sandwhiches. It was our best dinner out of the thing so far. I don't remember what kind of beef it was though that we started with.
My sister does that in the crockpot with frozen ones, but I'm not sure if that would work for you?
ANSWER: YES. Frozen works fine. Just need more minutes. We have a pressure cooker cookbook we got from QVC shopping channel. We also got one from another store. Some recipes say you can use frozen whole small chickens and you just have to use a longer setting on the minutes. We only tried some partially frozen beef once and it came out great. Once you open it up if you find something is not quite done to your liking then you can always put lid back on and cook for some more minutes if you need to. We have never had that happen yet since everything got done as expected.
Was the four quarts for the stew or did it have to have that much liquid?
ANSWER: We like a lot of "broth" when we do stews like we just did. So I tend to put more water in than the recipe calls for. We like to dip in crackers and other things so we use more water than most people would. Probably 2 quarts would have been fine in the stew we made.
Some recipes call for very little liquid. Like 1/2 cup or so. You do want to have at least a little liquid at bottom to help prevent any browning of the meats when it first starts to heat up. You can use chicken stock or beef stock instead of water if you want in most recipes.
Oh my, the possibility's are endless. Swiss steak, corn beef and cabbage,and IIRC you put up things from your garden. Does it have instructions on doing that, and if it does do you have to cook the veggies and in a boiling water bath for the jars and lids? then add the hot liquid?
ANSWER: I have never tried canning with it yet but have heard of others using them for canning. For recipes, I would recommend getting a cookbook specific for pressure cookers like we ended up getting. Tons of good recipes. Ive been dying to re-try my rice pudding recipe I once tried. I used the wrong type of rice and it came out lousy. LOL
We got our cookbook from QVC shopping channel and I think I got my cooker on QVC too.
The cookbook we got is from "Bob Warden" specific to pressure cookers. He has a couple different ones he came out with. Giving my model I got below, Most all the new ones seem to have the same basic features.
More questions - is you pressure cooker the one that they're selling on television like the ninja thingy and the nu wave oven?
ANSWER: Yes, Kind of. We got ours on QVC shopping channel 
Ours is brand = "Technique Electric Pressure Cooker Model HT-01". A lot of the cookers look similar. I think David in the Kitchen was with Bob Warden when we bought our pressure cooker.
I have a showtime rotisserie, and love it. It makes the best roast chicken. my only problem is tying the darn chicken up. Dh says it looks like a hostage or bondage when I try to truss the bird. The silicon rubberbands didn't last very long the last time I bought them off Amazon, so I use twine. You can also do ribs and things iin it also.
ANSWER: Neat. Ive never had a real rotisseiri but I would like to get one some day.
I'm also starting to get seed catalogs for spring planting!!
I think you're younger than me by a few years (just turned 64 last Wednesday), but did you and your wife sterilize bottles and formula the old fashion way? I'd wash the bottles and nipples (remember glass bottles?) and dear husband would fill and place them in this big pan with a lid and boil it for ten or fifteen minutes, then you took them out after they cool down some and let them sit and they would seal. We both wore aprons and gloves. You'd think we were handling nuclear waste.
ANSWER: LOL about the nuclear waist projects. I feel same way sometimes.
I love canning tomatoes. I do it on stove top using large pans. I just boil the lids and jars in one pan. Then boil tomoatoes in another. When everything is done boiling, I just fill the jars , wipe top clean and leave a little room on top and then turn upside down for 5 minutes. Then when I turn them rightside up, all the jars seal and pop as they cool.
Ive never used a pressure cooker to can vegetalbes yet. I may try that this summer.
