Sunday, August 9, 2009

Will Blog for Lunch, Dinner or Breakfast: Quickly in my Pressure Cooker

Some bloggers concoct recipes because they have a keen desire to publish and photograph them. I have a keen desire to eat -- at least 3 meals and a number of snacks a day. Since this is a blog about pressure cooking, I am not going to mention any raw food that I eat, but I do that, too.



Today, I did a take off of one of my own recipes for the pressure cooker: Green and Red Bean African Curry which is a riff on an African Curry recipe that I learned from Shuli and Ronit of Whole Spice, which is where I get the mighty delicious African curry powder.

Today the curry did not contain red beans (kidney) but did have marinated Zesty Lemon tempeh from Lightlife Foods, as well as potatoes. At the end of cooking I added some corn cut off the cob, which I cooked on the cob last night for 2 minutes in the pressure cooker.

The whole dish requires about 3 minutes at pressure. I say about because I used freshly dug potatoes and they sometimes only require a couple of minutes cooking. I do this dish in increments, using a quick release in between.

Here's what I discovered:
  1. I was hungry and I ate a lot of this for lunch.
  2. I prefer to marinate my own tempeh and do not care for the Lightlife but like the Turtle Island brand marinated tempeh better.
  3. The dish really does taste better with kidney beans but I didn't have any, and wanted a protein component.
  4. This curry, like many others, is highly adaptable and many seasonal vegetables could be added or substituted. I thought about adding summer squash or greens but that thought quickly left my head as I started cooking because I was so hungry.
  5. I still love my pressure cooker and what it does for me, and how quickly it does it. I can have a meal in almost no time -- less than 15 minutes from cutting board to mouth.

And that's why I blog -- for meals. If you want the recipe for the African curry, please leave a comment or email me jill@pressurecookingonline.com.

If you are interested in learning more about pressure cookers or how to use them please visit my pressure cooking website.

15 comments:

GIANTS FAN said...

This is a great site that you have here. The Internet needs sites like yours that preach to others about the importance of going green. I have a site myself where anyone can express their opinion towards controversial issues. Recently, we came up with a debate topic about going green and I wanted to inform you about it:

http://www.debateitout.com/should-corporations-be-required-to-go-green.html

Take care. Keep up the good work. Maybe we can do a link exchange.

Sincerely,
Jason
http://www.debateitout.com

dav;d h said...

I just got the electronic Cuisinart EPC-1200 PC at Costco 9/4/2009, a limited time offer, for $69.99. This is a great price because the CPC-600 is going for $100 and up.
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I belong to one of the largest pressure cooking groups on the web at groups.yahoo dot com/group/PressureCookerRecipes, come on over and meet us. We can find no differences between the CPC-600 and EPC-1200, the manuals are the same except for the manual covers.
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After using stove top PC (currently Fagor Splendid 4 & 6 qt set) for years, and trying 2 other electronic pressure cookers, I am very pleased with the Cuisinart and its 3 year warranty at this price point. It has a great capacity and cooks well, yesterday I made 7+ lbs of BBQ pork at my wife's request, but want to do more tiered veggie, or near veggie meals.

The Veggie Queen said...

David,

Thanks for your comments. I have not yet found an electric pressure cooker that I really like as most of them have nonstick interiors. I do appreciate your passing on your opinion. What a great price on that Cuisinart.

Cooking more vegetables is what I do best in the pressure cooker.

Thanks for visiting.

Jill

Sarah S. said...

Hi Jill,

I just found you through a google search because of David's comment on this post. I too saw this great sale of the Cuisinart EPC-1200PC and couldn't figure out why it is $50 cheaper than the CPC-600 which appears to be the same. So anyway, his comment was very helpful, but I'm intrigued now by your comments to him. This will be my first pressure cooker purchase and never having used one before I thought that an electric one would be most appropriate/safe. I'm very interested in hearing your opinion about the non-stick surface and why it is a negative. Thanks so much for your input! I'm also very excited having found your site, as a new pressure cooker user I'm sure it will be very handy!

--Sarah

The Veggie Queen said...

Sarah,

In general, I try to avoid nonstick cookware that can chip and peel. My fear is that with heat and lots of use, that will happen with this equipment.
A friend who is a cookware expert said that it's likely safer to use than a nonstick pan on the stove top.
I haven't read any complaints about them and know people that love their electric pressure cookers. I haven't yet used one that I like better than my stove top models so I am still in the dark.
Please let me know what you think when you use your new cooker.
Thanks for your comment.

Unknown said...

Jill, just discovered your site, and none too soon! What a great (and delicious) resource for reducing the environmental impact of your cooking!

This would make a nice entry in the "Mastering the Art of Sustainable Cooking" contest we've got going at Brighter Planet:

http://blog.brighterplanet.com/sustainable-cooking/

Best,
Matt

The Veggie Queen said...

Matt,

I would love to promote your Brighter Planet contest because I like what you are doing. I unfortunately can't quite figure out what it is that I am supposed to do to enter.

I want everyone to learn to use a pressure cooker to save the planet and themselves.

Thanks for letting me know about what you are doing.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

After read this post I think that it is good to make recipe with this pressure cooker because as I think that we can cook more easily with this pressure cooker.

dav;d h said...

Just an update, we are going to live in our motor home for a year, or more if we like it, we will take the Fagors, but the Cuisinart only if there is 'extra' storage space for it. There will always be gas for the stove, but we won't always have electricity for the Cuisinart.

The extra pluses for the Fagors is they work great as regular pans (and nest), saving additional space.

Reco said...

If anyone is looking for a quality stainless steel pressure cooker, check this one out Stainless Pressure Cooker

Unknown said...

Electric Pressure cooker is the only way to go. Over the years i have used a conventional pressure cooker but once I found the Electric Pressure by Presto Pressure Cooker it is a 6 quart model. The nice thing for me is that it made the pressure cooker completely portable I could take any where. At home the quick heat up time as compared to an electric stove is wonderful. It uses the same heat control as the other presto products so the one part that can fail you can easily get. But it is no longer available. So I guess it did not do very well. Another comment was talking about spending time in an RV. I once owned a 2 quart pressure cooker it was made for backpacking, it was very cute. You should googleit I think it was GSI outdoors but not sure. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

The Veggie Queen said...

Tom,
It's great that you love your electric pressure cooker. I am still not a fan of them for a number of reasons but getting people to use any type is great.

The recipes in my latest PDF ecookbook The New Fast Food: The Veggie Queen Pressure Cooks Whole Food Meals in Less than 30 Minutes has more than 100 recipes. I am guessing that the times need to be adjusted if you used the electric cooker. You can see more about my new book at http://www.theveggiequeen.com.

Anonymous said...

Hi,

I dont understand why you dont upload the recipe on your website instead of having to email you for it. I think you might get more hits if you actually had the recipe listed. Just my opinion though. That lunch looks good, even though I'm not a fan of tempeh. BUT, I've never tried this other kind you're writing about. Might have to check it out.

Unknown said...

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