As you probably know, I live in a condo with a kitchen that is not big. There is enough counter space but it’s too tiny for a table or island, though I do have a good-sized shelf under a bow window for which Joshua Friedman created a maple shelf for all my kitchen gadgets — a big Ninja blender/processor, a six-quart KitchenAid mixer and two Cuisinart food processors, one big and one little.

In the winter, a slow cooker is on it and in the summer, a salad spinner. At the center is a papier-mache 5-foot-tall pig holding a decorated tray. I have a pressure cooker in my garage and a rice cooker in the back of a shelved broom closet.

When I heard about that thing called an Instant Pot that would do so much that I could deep-six my rice cooker, slow cooker and the pressure cooker, I thought, “Maybe.” So I bought one, unboxed it and ordered Melissa Clark’s cookbook, “Dinner in an Instant.” Then I bought another cookbook, “Instant Pot Miracle.” Then I began to use this gadget. My slow cooker is gone (truth: I dropped the ceramic liner in the parking lot).

One of my neighbors came over and showed me how to use the pressure cooker part. The rice cooker and the pressure cooker went to good homes. I have made risotto in the pressure cooker, a pasta dish in the slow cooker and sautéed vegetables and seared meat in it.

You can even reduce meat juices into gravy, all on the same pot.

Last week I made a dish that I created myself, using the saute, slow cooker and pressure cooker in that one pot. You can use any pot or pan inside the Pot and I will make a cheesecake this weekend.

The machine knows more than I do, so I now have no reservations and will be playing with it all winter.

So ask your partner, or Santa, to buy one for you. Or buy one for yourself. I bought an 8-quart Instant Pot on Amazon. Then I bought a 6-quart for my daughter in L.A. and one for my Minnesota granddaughter.

There are many on the market, but the one I bought was created in Canada and is manufactured in China. This makes sense, since the best rice cookers are Chinese.

The Instant Pot has been on the market for almost a decade. There are tons of blogs and recipes on the Internet. My favorite cookbook is “Instant Pot Miracle”; at BJ’s, it is $14.99.

Red Curry with Sweet Sausage and Rice

Yield: about 4 servings

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 pound sweet sausage, cut into 2-inch slices,

1 medium onion, diced

1 sweet bell pepper (orange or yellow), seeded and diced

3 small carrots, peeled and diced

2 large cloves of garlic, peeled and minced

One-half to 1 teaspoon red curry paste (a full teaspoons is pretty hot)

1 13-plus-ounce can Thai Kitchen light coconut milk

4 cups low-sodium chicken or vegetable stock or broth

3 to 4 cups cooked rice

Salt and pepper, to taste

In the stainless pot of the Instant Pot, hit saute and add oil. With lid off, saute the sausage until just a little pink. Remove and set aside.

Place vegetables and garlic on the pot and saute until almost translucent, about 5 minutes, stirring the veggies.

Put in the curry paste and continue to stir. Add coconut milk and stock.

Pour the sausage back into the sauce.

Putting the lid on and sealing it, using the Instant Pot, manual on slow cook for about 3 hours (because everything is pretty much already cooked).

When this is done (it should be very soupy), add the rice. Slow cook for another couple of hours.

When done, add salt and pepper if necessary. (I have no idea why my slow cooker went into pressure cooker, but it stopped itself. The dish was just delicious.)