The Instant Pot multi-cooker does boffo beans. I made a beans-and-ham-hock stew for the ages yesterday, and it took only an hour, plus time to bone the hock and cut up the meat. Perfect texture, great flavour.

Further to the discussion of stock, above: I'm with Steve Shaw on bouillon cubes. I read the labels on the packets at the supermarket, including the ones that say Organic and whatever, and always end up putting them back on the shelf in favour of the cut-up veg and chicken wreckage that I have used for some fifty years.

It isn't just that I don't know what the finished article will taste like, it's also that properly made stock behaves in a particular way when you boil it down, and I have no idea whether the bouillon cube will produce a similar result.

I'm not so sure of Steve's analysis of the effect of wine, but then every cook has his/her own special understanding of "harsh". Come to think of it, everything I put wine in gets flambéed or cooked for ages, and sometimes both.

As for okra, I have no idea. The only place to buy okra around here is more than half an hour away in Kitchener, and I don't consider it worth the trip.