J. L. Fields - Vegan Pressure Cooking

If youre looking to save time while also crafting food that is healthy, flavorful, and creative, look no further than this essential resource. With Vegan Pressure Cooking, JL Fields has crafted that rarest of things: a cookbook that is beautiful and practical at once. The recipes are highly accessible and easy to prepare, and youll be immediately drawn in by her personable voice and culinary savvy.

Gena Hamshaw, C.C.N., author of Choosing Raw

A collection of thrillingly easy-to-make, yet scrumptious, recipes that get you to be best buddies with a pressure cooker. JL takes the fear out of cooking under pressure and puts fun and finesse into humble beans, grains, and veggies, turning them into everything from delectable one-pot dishes to desserts.

Miyoko Schinner, author of Artisan Vegan Cheese, and others (www.artisanveganlife.com)

In this beautiful and accessible book, the irrepressible JL Fields reinvents fast food healthfully, deliciously, and passionately. And she proves beyond a doubt that this is not your grandmas pressure cooking.

Victoria Moran, author of Main Street Vegan and director of Main Street Vegan Academy (www.mainstreetvegan.net)

Vegan Pressure Cooking is full of creative, kind, and delicious recipes thatll inspire you to get back into the kitchen tonight!

Annie Shannon, co-author of Betty Goes Vegan

DELICIOUS BEANS,
GRAINS and ONE-POT
MEALS IN MINUTES

JL FIELDS

2015 Fair Winds Press
Photography Kate Lewis Photography

First published in the USA in 2015 by
Fair Winds Press, a member of
Quarto Publishing Group USA Inc.
100 Cummings Center
Suite 406-L
Beverly, MA 01915-6101
www.fairwindspress.com

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

19 18 17 16 15 1 2 3 4 5

Digital edition published in 2015

Digital edition: 978-1-62788-306-1
Softcover edition: 978-1-59233-644-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

Book and cover design by Amanda Richmond

The information in this book is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or medical practitioner. Please see your health care provider before beginning any new health program.

To Janice and Larry Fields,
for instilling in me a desire to try to make life better for every living being.

To Dave Burgess,
for loving me for who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

This book is because of you three.

Chapter One
PRESSURE COOKING

Chapter Two
BEANS AND GRAINS

Chapter Three
SOUPS AND STEWS

Chapter Four
ONE-POT MEALS

Chapter Five
MEAL HELPERS AND VEGGIE SIDES

Chapter Six
SAUCES AND DIPS

Chapter Seven
SWEET TREATS

I hold three people responsible for my pressure-cooking obsession authors Gena Hamshaw, Lorna Sass, and Jill Nussinow. Four years ago, after eight years as a vegetarian, I went vegan. During that first year as a new vegan, I made a point to read vegan blogs, plant-based cookbooks, and nutrition books. I wanted to get it right, this vegan thing, and after years of counting on my husband to do most of the cooking, I felt like a fish out of water. So when one of my favorite bloggers, Gena Hamshaw of Choosing Raw, wrote a compelling, convincing post about the virtues of the pressure cookerespecially for vegansI was sold. I ordered my first pressure cooker and the cookbook Great Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure by Lorna Sass, and my obsession began.

Not long after learning how to use my pressure cooker, I began to chronicle my adventures (and misadventures) on my blog, JL Goes Vegan. Cookbook author Jill Nussinow reached out to help me along the way. She event wrote a terrific Pressure Cooker 101 post for my blog, and I began turning to her books religiously. To this day, Jill and I are comrades in pressure cooker activism in and out of the vegan community.

I am not a trained chef. I am a home cook. I simply took the initiative to sign up for a few public education courses at culinary schools to learn how to get more creative in the kitchen and cook intuitively. My recipes are wholesome and delicious and have been developed to demonstrate how easy it is to cook and eat a well-balanced plant-based diet, even if you consider yourself a busy non-cookactually, especially if you consider yourself a busy non-cook.

As a vegan lifestyle coach and educator, I work primarily with clients who are not necessarily inclined to go vegan but are highly motivated to live more healthfully by eating a whole-foods, plant-based diet. I realize that not everyone reading this book is vegan or plans to go vegan. Many people want to learn how to incorporate more plants into their diet to improve their health or to have a more positive impact on the environment. And, of course, there are vegans who want to avoid using or consuming animals. Wherever you are on the veg-spectrum, I want to help. I teach cooking classes and demonstrate how accessibleand essentialthe pressure cooker is when following a plant-based diet. I believe that using a pressure cooker will get you back into your kitchen. You will get excited about making dried beans from scratch and getting creative with grains the likes of which you may have never considered cooking or eating.

In this book I will provide you with tips, tricks, and techniquesand delicious, easy recipesthat will help you use the pressure cooker to incorporate more vegetables, legumes and beans, and grains into your diet quickly and easily. Whos ready to have some fun?

Why use a pressure cooker? Simply put, this nifty, no-frills appliance helps you make beans and grainsand, in turn, mealsin minutes. Sure, you can buy canned beans or instant rice, but once you realize how quickly you can prepare home-cooked beans and grains, I dont think youll want to. How quickly, you ask?

Quinoa: 1 minute

Bulgur: 5 minutes

Black-eyed peas: 6 minutes

Brown lentils: 8 minutes

Adzuki beans: 9 minutes

Chickpeas: 15 minutes

Pearl barley: 18 minutes

Brown rice: 22 minutes

You can also save money. In a cost-per-serving analysis of dried beans versus canned beans, you save roughly twice as much by purchasing dried and cooking them on your own. And you save a lot of sodium too, as the canned versions are often full of salt!

Aside from staples, the pressure cooker is, of course, great for one-pot meals: stews, soups, and moreas this book will show you! For an easy, healthy, filling dinner, I heat onions and garlic in a little olive oil in the pressure cooker and then mix and match vegetables and beans. Another quick and filling meal I love is based around cubed or small potatoes, which cook up in about 6 minutes in the pressure cooker. I cook the potatoes with packaged seitan or tofu, carrots and celery, maybe a diced tomato or two, and enough vegetable broth to cover everything. Six minutes under pressure and I am enjoying a hearty stew alongside a raw salad or sauted greens.