I’ve been vegetarian for 17 years, and vegan for 3, and I’m having a difficult time believing that I have only JUST discovered the magic of the pressure cooker. Sure, I knew about them before – I may have even heard people raving about them. But I never really understood just HOW HELPFUL these little gadgets can be in a vegan kitchen!
One of my new year’s resolutions was to try to get more beans into my family’s diet – and another was not to buy canned beans anymore! Hence, the idea to purchase a pressure cooker. I think what took me so long is the fact that I’m a little freaked out by steam. I read somewhere once about a pressure cooker blowing up, and right there and then it would seem I put the possibility of ever having one right out of my mind. The story may not even have been true…it may have been with the first pressure cooker ever made. It doesn’t matter. This is how my fearful brain works.
Even once I had the pressure cooker in my hot little hands, it sat on my counter, taunting me for several weeks before I got up the courage to use it. In fact, it took some friends coming over (who are big advocates) and who promised to walk me through the process and the first steam hissing surprise. But that happened last weekend and now I’m hooked!
We made black beans in…10 minutes! Brown rice in 12! Not only were they done, but cooked PERFECTLY! I started getting carried away, digging all kinds of things out of our cupboards to try in that shiny little pot – but my husband was, as usual, the voice of reason, reminding me that we can only eat SO many beans in one week. So tonight I’m going to try chickpeas. And I am even more excited to learn that you can create whole meals right in that pressure cooker!
Here’s a chart I found with timing guidelines, and a blog post from our good friend JL, who apparently also “discovered” pressure cookers recently! I haven’t found any VEGAN pressure cooking books yet, but this veg one gets good reviews: Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure, by Lorna Sass.
So now, here are my questions to you: Are you a fan of the pressure cooker? What are your favorite vegan recipes?
Emma Levez Larocque is an author and photographer living on the west coast of Canada. She has been veg for 18 years, vegan for 3. Her passion is working to make veganism mainstream to promote a better, kinder world for all beings. 
