Pressure Cookers Are for Lovers: "Vegan Under Pressure"

You can keep your sous vide machine. Slow cookers? Blech. I’m a fast cooker, and proud of it. You can be, too. Pressure cooking is more mainstream than ever, which is great news.

I’m biased, of course. I own five pressure cookers. This may seem excessive, but since I teach pressure cooking classes, I need a whole fleet of them. In fact, I’m game to acquire a few more, because every time I’ve taught a pressure cooking class, it has sold out. This is not so much because I’m awesome, but because pressure cooking is a positive trend was can be happy about.

I was skeptical about pressure cooking at first, but now it’s a way of life for me. And, in large part, I have The Veggie Queen—a.k.a. Jill Nussinow--to thank. I got into pressure cooking because I had to, but Jill made it welcoming and rewarding.

A number of years ago, I worked in a fancy cookware store. I’ve always been a cookware gearhead, plus I have a background in professional kitchens, so I was good at moving the high-end stuff: All-Clad, Mauviel, Le Creuset. The store also offered Fagor and Kuhn Rikon pressure cookers, and on the rare occasions a customer asked about them, I froze up.

This drove me crazy, because I do not like to be poorly informed, but lo! One day I got an email from Jill Nussinow, who I’d interviewed once as an expert on whole grains. She offered to send me a copy of her DVD, Pressure Cooking: A Fresh Look. Hmm, I thought. This could be the key.

Her short video and affable yet straightforward manner took away all of my misgivings about the thing. I borrowed the store’s demo model, a Fagor Duo 6-quart, and began experimenting at home. Long story short, I fell in love. Not only did I become the store’s go-to pressure cooking authority; I never returned their demo model. The Fagor Duo 6-Quart remains my favorite model to this day (don’t fear; the store had a spare).

There are some differences between how Jill and I cook. For one, she’s vegan, and I’m not. I use a more generous hand with fats and salt than she does. I eat a lot more gluten. Jill’s a Registered Dietitian, and I consider hot dogs to be a fun and special treat.

But the funny thing is how much our pressure cooking styles intersect. We rely on pressure cookers to turn out fresh, flavorful, healthy meals for our families and for ourselves. We rely on pressure cookers to make whole foods, like dried beans and whole grains, speedier to incorporate into our daily menus. We both like having soup for breakfast. Pressure cookers deliver on all of those fronts.

I had the opportunity to test some of the many quick and colorful recipes in Jill’s newest book, Vegan Under Pressure: Perfect Vegan Meals Made Quick and Easy in Your Pressure Cooker, and I’m delighted to see it hit the shelves. I teach some of her recipes in my pressure cooking classes, and I’ll gladly refer my students to this inspiring volume. Just looking at it makes me want to break out one (or two or three) of my pressure cookers. The Barley, Shiitake, and Walnut Burgers are favorites, as is the That Red Curry with Winter Squash, Mushrooms, and Broccoli. Even though I consider myself a pressure cooking expert, there's always something new to learn, and Jill's book showed me how to rig up a set of foil helper handles to lift hot bowls from the interior of a pressure cooker (before, I'd just fiddle with tongs, which is unwieldy and unsafe). So even though the recipes are fantastic, the tips and tricks are a big draw, too, making this a cookbook useful for pressure cooking novices and veterans alike. 

Here’s a recipe from Vegan Under Pressure I’m sure I’ll come back to. It’s fast and flexible, because you can swap out some of the vegetables for others if you don’t have everything on hand. My carnivorous husband found the tofu and tahini combination satisfying, and the kick of sriracha was just what we needed on a slushy winter evening. Serve this over hot brown rice, like I did (the brown rice I made in an Instant Pot electric pressure cooker, another item Jill got me into). So it was a 2-pressure-cooker dinner, which is always an indication of a gratifying meal. No worries, though--you only need one pressure cooker to make yours.

© Lauren Volo

Sassy Sesame Tofu with Sweet Potato, Carrots, and Sugar Snap Peas

from Vegan Under Pressure by Jill Nussinow, MS, RDN

Serves 4

"This crowd-pleasing recipe is a simple and delicious way to prepare tofu, which gets firmer under pressure and absorbs the flavors of the cooking liquid. It cooks very quickly. It’s best to cook the sugar snap peas on low pressure for just a minute so they don’t become mushy. The sweet and spicy sauce at the end makes it even more special. Serve this over any type of rice or other grain."

• 2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil
• 1 medium yellow, white, or sweet onion, sliced from top to bottom to equal about 2 cups
• 1 carrot, peeled and cut on the diagonal into ½-inch pieces
• 1 cup diced peeled sweet potato
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tablespoons sesame seeds
• 1 pound extra firm tofu, cut into 1-inch cubes
• 1 to 2 tablespoons tamari
• 1 tablespoon rice vinegar
  
• ⅓ cup vegetable stock
• 2 cups sugar snap or snow peas, cut in half [Sausagetarian note: I substituted chopped napa cabbage, using the same cooking times, and was very pleased with the results.]
• 2 tablespoons sriracha
• 2 tablespoons tahini, optional, for a richer dish [Sausagetarian note: I really liked the flavor kick and body this gave to the dish, and recommend using it if you’re a fan of tahini]
• 2 tablespoons chopped scallion, for garnish

1. Heat a stovetop pressure cooker over medium heat or set an electric cooker to sauté; add the sesame oil. Add the onion, carrot, and sweet potato and sauté for 2 minutes. Add the garlic and 1 tablespoon of the sesame seeds and sauté another minute. Add the tofu, tamari, vinegar, and stock.

2. Lock the lid on the cooker. Bring to high pressure; cook for 3 minutes. Quick release the pressure. Carefully remove the lid, tilting it away from you.

3. Add the peas and lock the lid back on. Bring to low pressure; cook for 1 minute. (If you do not have a low pressure option, lock the lid on and let sit for 2 to 3 minutes.) Quick release the pressure. Remove the lid, carefully tilting it away from you.

4. Stir in the pepper sauce and tahini, if using. Garnish with the remaining 1 tablespoon sesame seeds and the chopped scallion and serve.

Variations: Use broccoli florets or 1-inch pieces of green or wax beans instead of the peas. Cook at low pressure for 2 minutes with a quick release.

Text excerpted from Vegan Under Pressure, © 2015 by Jill Nussinow. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.​

Tomato and Summer Squash Chutney

Our glorious summer tomato days are waning. I want to eat as many tomato-centric sandwiches as possible, and I feel those opportunities slipping away as the calendar marches on. I ate sliced of the last ripe red tomato in the house yesterday, on a sandwich smeared with squash-tomato chutney made a few days ago from many of its tomato siblings. How delightfully perverse to ingest multiple forms of tomato carnage in one petite sandwich.

This time in the season, a lot of us have a pile of not-quite ripe tomatoes, and another pile of outright green ones. You can cook them all up in this sticky, sweet-tart sandwich spread. The tomatoes melt into a gel, suspending cubes of squash that are nearly candied. I use it all year long. It’s the best thing to put on a grilled cheese sandwich, and it has also eclipsed ketchup here as a topping for hamburgers.

This is a fine entry-level preserving recipe, and makes a significant dent in the bulbous summer squash that seemingly spontaneously generate during hot months. The key to chutney working as a sandwich spread is the dice of the squash and peppers; if too large, they sit clumsily on the bread. The correct dice is ½ to ¼ inch, and it will require a decent investment of knife work. Put on your favorite podcast and look at is as therapeutic.  

Yellow Summer Squash and Tomato Chutney

Makes about 7 to 8 half-pint jars 

This is a great way to use up those homegrown summer squash the size of a human’s femur. Yellow squash makes the prettiest chutney, but you can add green zucchini, too. I also like to use patty pan squash. If I have a particularly femur-esque specimen, I cut off about ¾ from four sides and pitch the elongated cube of mealy interior. This might mess with your yield, so if you are using older or bigger squash, make sure to weight it post-cutting.

• 2 pounds summer squash, preferably yellow, diced between ½ and ¼ inch
• 1 pound onions, finely diced
• 1-1/2 pounds ripe tomatoes, cored and chopped
• Up to ½ pound not-too-spicy gypsy or wax peppers, seeded and diced ½ inch, optional
• 3-1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 2-1/2 cups apple cider vinegar
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 teaspoons minced fresh ginger
• ½ teaspoon dried red pepper flakes
• 1/8 teaspoon sweet paprika
• 1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1 teaspoon table salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a large (about 5 quart) non-reactive pot, such as stainless steel or enameled cast iron. Stir to combine, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat.

Uncover and continue to cook (in a well-vented room if you don’t want to wipe everyone out with vinegar fumes) over high heat. For the first 20 minutes or so, you probably won’t need to stir very often; there will be plenty of liquid. If you see any scum rise to the surface, skim it off, but there won’t be anywhere near as much as, say, a batch of strawberry jam might produce.

Once the chutney starts to thicken, stir it with a wooden spoon every now and then. Gradually reduce the heat. When the chutney starts getting glossy and the bubbles get smaller and make little snapping noises, it’s very close to ready. You should feel a decent amount of resistance when you stir. It will take between 45 minutes to over an hour for the chutney to cook, depending on many factors: the intensity of the flame, the liquid content of the veggies, the particular character of the day.

Pack the chutney in warm sterilized jars (I prefer half-pint), leaving ¼ inch headspace. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. The chutney isn’t too bad at all right after you make it, but it gets better if you allow the jars to age a month or so before opening. Store any jars that didn’t seal properly in the refrigerator for up to one month.

Curried Sweet Potato and Red Lentil Soup

Right now we’re at the peak of summer, but I first encountered this rib-sticking soup in the chill of last November. It’s an all-season soup; I can’t stop craving the stuff, with its exotic aroma and bright flavors.  

I can thank the TipTop Café of Thomas, West Virginia for introducing me to this hearty manna. After a long day of teaching a charcuterie class in the adorably historic village of Thomas, I was beat. We’d driven up the mountain with a car full of kitchen equipment and specialty cuts of dead animals. We all had a blast, but anyone who’s cleaned up after a day of sausage-making knows what a task it is. After we’d dried the last sheet pan and swept the floor a final time, we walked a few blocks to the TipTop, a darling little coffee shop/bar/restaurant in a well-preserved former mining town (population 600-something). Passing through its door was like entering a portal to Brooklyn or Portland: the tidy row of specialty chocolate bars, the gleaming shelf of infused liquors, the kid’s area with an IKEA play kitchen. I was famished—when I teach classes, I get hyper-focused and can’t really eat anything of substance—and a steamy bowl of vegan soup topped off a day of pâté-making like nothing else could.

Thomas is hours away, and I’m saving future TipTop visits for fancy chocolate bars and cocktails made with nibby bourbon. I can’t get those here, but I was able to replicate the soup in my own kitchen. Slightly sweet with a gingery bite, it’s easy to throw together (and, if you own a pressure cooker, will be ready to eat in all of 10 minutes). Even my four-year-old daughter consented to eat spoonfuls at the dinner table, a rarity for any food that’s not a cheese sandwich.

We returned from on a two-week trip recently. I peeked in our root cellar (actually just a basement-corner “IN” basket salvaged from a former library job) and saw tendrils sprouting from the giant sweet potato I’d intended for soup. After lopping off the rooty top, I plopped it in a dish of water, and lo! It grew. My hope is to pot the thing in a hanging basket, once the roots really get going. Sweet potatoes make cute houseplants, but they make better soup.

Curried Red Lentil and Sweet Potato Soup

Serves 4-6  

Do not even consider using a can of lite coconut milk. Fatty coconut milk is what makes this soup so rich and fragrant.

• 1 13.5-ounce can coconut milk
• 1 medium onion, finely diced
• 1 tablespoon minced ginger
• 4 large cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1 tablespoon curry powder
• 2 medium sweet potatoes (about 1 pound 5 ounces), peeled and cut into 4-inch chunks
• 1 cup dried red lentils
• 3 cups water
• 2-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon sriracha sauce
• 1 lime
• Chopped cilantro, for serving

Open the can of coconut milk and spoon a few tablespoons of the fat at the top of the can into the bottom of a pressure cooker at least a 4-quart capacity. (You may use a large Dutch oven or heavy-bottomed stockpot). Turn the heat to medium-high. Once the coconut fat sputters, add the onion and cook until soft and translucent, 3-5 minutes. Add the ginger and garlic and cook another minute. Add the curry powder and stir until combined. Dump in the sweet potatoes, lentils, remaining coconut milk, water, and salt.

If using the pressure cooker, lock the lid in place, bring to the highest pressure, and cook for 7 minutes. Let the pressure release naturally. (If you’re not using a pressure cooker, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and cover. Cook maybe about 30 minutes, stirring often. You’ll probably need to add at least another cup of water, bit by bit).

Unlock the lid of the pressure cooker and either mash the soup with a potato masher or stir it vigorously with a big wooden spoon—the sweet potatoes should be cooked enough to easily fall apart. Stir in the sriracha sauce and squirt in the juice of half the lime. Taste and adjust the seasonings with more salt or a few squirts of sriracha. This soup thickens quite a bit as it cools, so you may need to add more water to make it more like soup and less like porridge.

Serve topped with cilantro, if you like, and more freshly squeezed lime juice. Once cooled, the soup will keep, tightly covered in the refrigerator, for 5 days.   

My Baby's Got Sauce

My latest piece for The Oregonian will have you eating giant piles of awesome veggies all week long. Read it here. Then make the finger-licking sauces. And then watch this. 

New Post on Good.Food.Stories.

I have a post about the very accessible art of homemade ice cream on the fabulous website Good.Food.Stories. Every word is true. I really did drop out of the homemade ice cream scene for, like, four years. All because of frozen breast milk. Just read it, and enjoy my recipe for vegan basil-mint ice cream. It's killer.

And as a teaser, enjoy this hypnotic video of the basil-mint ice cream as it's churning. 

Dr. Chicken's PCT Cookies

It’s raining in Ohio right now, but it’s probably not raining where my big brother is. That would be somewhere between Kennedy Meadows and Tuolumne Meadows in California’s High Sierra. He’s thru-hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. Every now and then as I go about my daily routines—walking the dog through the cemetery, driving to pick Frances up from preschool, washing dirty pots and pans—I think to myself, “What’s Mark up to at this moment?”

Only he’s not Mark on the trail; he’s Dr. Chicken, or D.C. This trail name of his has a legitimate origin, though I forget exactly what it is. I imagine Dr. Chicken scrambling up a jagged path of scree, taking in noble, wild scenery that most of us only see on wall calendars. Or I imagine him emerging from his ultra-light tent at 4am to get a head start on the day. But usually I picture him eating. Thru-hikers blast through calories and need plenty of fuel.

A few weeks ago, my mother and I put together the food resupply box he’d requested us to have ready . “I’ll need 5-6 days of food” he’d texted me. “Best send by May 17.” Yes, he has a cell phone, and it has come in handy, even though I know Dr. Chicken’s impetus in taking to the PCT was, in part, to escape the frippery of technology and constant communication.

Thanks in part to Cheryl Strayed’s mega-successful book Wild, the PCT is hopping this season. The film adaptation comes out in December, and PCT traffic will probably increase after that. Which is not bad, but the character of a thing changes as more and more people show up. That’s just the way it works.

My brother, D.C., is changing, too. A nonconformist and borderline ascetic, he’s felt trapped in his past few jobs coordinating trail maintenance workers in the backcountry of Alaska and Washington. As the old song goes, he was born the next of kin to the wayward wind. He yearns to wander. All those footsteps on dry desert earth and rocky soil are leading him to some kind of resolution.

I wanted to meet up with D.C. on the Oregon leg of the PCT for a few days, but it’s just not going to happen. I have a kid and a husband and work to do; I long ago squandered all of my wayward-wind days. The best I could do was bake cookies. I packed them up in Ziplock bags and tucked them into the box Mom and I jammed with way too much food, despite his texted assurances not to go too crazy.

I love telling people what my brother’s up to. He’s doing the thing a lot of us wish we could do. I doubt he wakes us up thinking what his sister and little niece are up to, but you never know. He’s out there hiking this thing for himself, but he doesn’t know he’s hiking it for me, too.

Dr. Chicken’s PCT Cookies

Makes 3-1/2 dozen large or 5 dozen small cookies

Plenty of hearty rolled oats, big chunks of roasted almonds, and a generous volume of dark chocolate chips make these modified cowboy cookies hit all of the right textures. I like them for a mid-morning snack. Hopefully Dr. Chicken did, too. To get the most coconut flavor, use extra-virgin coconut oil. It’s not cheap, but its tropical aroma alone is just divine. Some brands of coconut oil are flavor-neutral. Use those and your cookies will still taste pretty great.

• 1 cup extra-virgin coconut oil, solid
• 2 cups rolled oats or quick oats
• 2 cups all-purpose or white whole wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon table salt
• 2 tablespoons finely ground flaxseed or chia seeds
• 4 ounces (1/2 cup) applesauce, preferably unsweetened
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• 1 cup brown sugar, light or dark
• 12 ounces (2 cups) chocolate chips (check to see if they are vegan, if that’s a concern)
• 2 cups whole almonds, toasted and roughly chopped
• 1-3 tablespoons water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Position baking racks in the top and bottom third of the oven.

If it’s warm and your coconut oil is quite liquidy, pour one cup into a glass measuring cup and chill in the refrigerator for an hours or so, until it’s firmer.

Place one cup of the oats in a food processor or blender and pulse on and off until the oats are in smaller pieces, but not too powdery. Put all 2 cups of the oats in a large bowl. Add the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and stir to combine.

Stir the ground flax or chia seeds together with the applesauce and vanilla in a small bowl, and set aside to thicken.

Meanwhile, put the coconut oil in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Beat until it’s relatively smooth. Add the brown sugar and beat on high speed, scraping down the sides with a rubber spatula from time to time, until the mixture is lighter in texture and has a somewhat pearly look (about 3 minutes). Add the applesauce mixture and beat another minute.

Scrape down the bowl once more, than add the oat-flour mixture. Beat until combined (this dough will be a bit crumbly, but if it looks particularly dry, add one or two tablespoons of water.) Add the chocolate chips and almonds and beat just until they are distributed nicely through the dough.

Scoop out balls of dough that are about 1-1/2 inches in diameter for large cookies, 1 inch for smaller cookies. Place the dough balls on an ungreased, unlined baking sheet, 12 to a sheet. Flatten each dough ball with your palm a little (these cookies will not spread much during baking). Bake about 8-10 minutes, rotating the sheet from top to bottom and back to front halfway through baking. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheet 5 minutes before transferring them with a thin metal spatula to a cooling rack. Cookies will keep, tightly covered, for about a week. I think. They’re usually gone by day 5 or earlier.

The Lifesaving Sandwich

“I will drink Champagne anywhere, anytime, with anyone,” a former wine merchant friend of mine was fond of saying. I feel that way about Champagne, too, but I feel even more so about The Sandwich. It is alwaysà propos.

The Sandwich is what I eat when there’s nothing to eat. 95% of the time, we have all its components at the ready. Carrots, peanut butter, bread. That’s three-fourths of The Sandwich. Mae Ploy sweet chili sauce is the other quarter. It must be Mae Ploy. All other sweet chili sauces are pale imitations.

The idea for The Sandwich came from the documentary Sandwiches That You Will Like (get it on Netflix; I promise you won’t regret it). The filmmaker, Rick Sebak, visits New York City’s Peanut Butter & Co., where they serve a grilled chicken-peanut butter sandwich. I don’t love grilled chicken, and I especially don’t believe in chicken on sandwiches or pizza. What I do love are salad rolls, especially the peanut dipping sauce. Wheels turned in my brain. After a few wobbly experiments, The Sandwich was born.

Whole-grain bread is the best, especially if it’s studded with sunflower seeds or nubbly bits of cracked wheat. I always toast the bread lightly first, for optimal textural contrast. Also, the warmth of the just-toasted bread heightens the richness of the peanut butter.

Cut the carrots in matchsticks. Don’t get lazy and chunk them up any old way. The lattice of carrot shards creates a network that traps as much Mae Ploy as possible. And the more Mae Ploy on this sandwich, the better.

You can use any kind of peanut butter. Chunky, creamy. Natural or processed. Salted or no salt added. Just be sure to use a lot. Spread it on both sides of the sandwich. This is good fat that will keep you going strong. Also, it tastes good. And it keeps the carrot-matchsticks glued in place.

Fresh lettuce is nice, but not required. Long sprigs of fresh cilantro, stems and all, are even better. Slices of avocado won’t hurt. Grilled chicken is right out.

Just before serving, on goes the Mae Ploy. It’s not like jam; it’s loose and runny and will make a sticky-slippery mess of your sandwich no matter what you do. You have not made The Sandwich the right way if it’s not a dripping wreck. (Wrap the sandwich in a few paper towels or napkins to create a holder of sorts, if you must).

Surprisingly, griddling does not improve this sandwich, and it is only semi-portable. You may prepare it, sans the toasting, up to the Mae Ploy, which you can bring along in the bottle and add on-site, right before tucking into your hearty yet healthful lunch. At my former workplace, I kept a bottle of Mae Ploy in the break room fridge expressly for this purpose. (Mae Ploy tastes better at room temperature, but it’s runnier that way. I had to make a concession.)

The Sandwich has saved my hungry ass on many occasions. It’s all-season, vegan, and speedy to prepare. I imagine I have a few hundred of them yet to consume in my life, which means I have a lot to look forward to.

What lifesaving sandwiches do you look forward to all of the time, every time?

This originally appeared on Food Riot, where I contribute regularly.

Eggless Easter Breads

Bake the richest, most flavorful Easter breads ever. They are vegan, but it doesn't matter. These are the Easter bread recipes I will return to again and again from now on, whether I'm eschewing egg or not. Check out my story in The Oregonian to read more. The hot cross buns and Greek Easter braid are way easier than you'd guess.