Quick Pressure Cooker Meals

Sometimes you just want to throw a bunch of things in a pot and get it on the table in a short amount of time.  A lot of my cooking is like that, but I want flavor, texture and nutrition even for minimal effort.  I do a number of meals in a pressure cooker because it speeds things up, especially rice dishes now that I only use whole grain rice.  Again, when I cook, I make a full pot of food that can last several meals or be frozen, so if you need to cut back on volume, feel free!

Pressure Cooker Beans and Rice

• 2 cups vegetarian broth (you will need more liquid, but some is coming from other canned goods)
• 2 cups long grain brown rice
• 1 15 oz can organic, low sodium black beans with liquid
• 1 15 oz can organic, low sodium dark red kidney beans with liquid
• 1 15 oz cans no salt, diced tomatoes with liquid
• 1 4 oz can chopped green chilies
• 1 7 oz can sliced black olives, drained
• 1 lb frozen corn or 1 15 oz can corn drained
• 2 rounded Tbsp chili powder
• 1 rounded Tbsp ground cumin

Optional: 

• Some re hydrated TVP chunks
• 1 bunch of kale, chopped

Place broth in pressure cooker and crank your burner up to high.  Add rice, beans, tomatoes, chilies, olives, corn and spices.  If using, add TVP.  Lock lid onto pressure cooker and bring up to full pressure.  Once pressure valve pops up, set timer for 30 minutes and reduce heat to low.  When timer goes off, remove from heat and set timer for another 15 minutes.  Remove lid and fluff and stir with a fork.

If adding kale, do not add at beginning.  After first 30 minutes, run cold water on pressure cooker to reduce steam.  When pressure valve drops, remove lid, add chopped kale, replace and lock lid and set timer for 15 minutes.  This will allow the kale to wilt enough without losing too many nutrients.  After 15 minutes, fluff and stir as above and serve!

This makes quite a lot of food and so we had it available for several meals.  Sometimes we just eat it like a casserole, but we had this big bag of whole wheat tortillas, so we made burritos out of it for one meal, and for another (pictured) we served it with some grilled quesadillas made with our whole wheat tortillas and Daiya cheddar shreds.



Beans and rice and quesadillas!  YUM!!

A note about canned foods.  A lot of canned foods have high amounts of sodium in them, which is why you are often better off starting with dry beans, soaking and cooking with limited added salt.  A pressure cooker is great for this!  It can still be time consuming, and you would probably want to prepare those beans on the weekend and use throughout the week.  A lot of supermarkets, however, have organic, low sodium canned items.  They are not always the least expensive, but they are available for your convenience.  Balance things out between your budget and your time, but definitely move toward lower amounts of sodium.