Urvashi Pitre - Instant Pot Miracle Vegetarian Cookbook: More Than 100 Easy Meatless Meals for Your Favorite Kitchen Device

Copyright 2020 by Urvashi Pitre

Photography Copyright 2020 by Ghazalle Badiozamani

Food Styling by Monica Pierini

Prop Styling by Jenna Tedesco

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

hmhbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Pitre, Urvashi, author. | Badiozamani, Ghazalle (Photographer), photographer.

Title: Instant pot miracle vegetarian cookbook : more than 100 easy meatless meals for your favorite kitchen device / Urvashi Pitre ; photography by Ghazalle Badiozamani.

Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2020. | Includes index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2020009486 (print) | LCCN 2020009487 (ebook) | ISBN 9780358379331 (trade paperback) | ISBN 9780358378846 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Vegetarian cooking. | Quick and easy cooking. | Smart cookers. | Pressure cooking. | Electric cooking. | LCGFT: Cookbooks.

Classification: LCC TX837 .P576 2020 (print) | LCC TX837 (ebook) | DDC 641.5/636dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009486

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009487

Book design by Jennifer K. Beal Davis

v2.0920

To my husband, Roger,
who is my best friend
and my staunchest advocate.
I couldnt do any of this
without you.

My biggest thanks go to my fans, followers, and readers, who continue to support, suggest, encourage, and make me laugh daily. If it werent for you, Id be creating recipes that absolutely no one madeand how little fun would that be?

My husband, who continues to eat all my successes and failures and gives me honest feedback no matter what.

Sheila Ward, who helped me painstakingly test every recipe in this book, some of them more than once.

Sammy and Paul Brakebill and Ashley Reachelle, who help me keep twosleevers.com going when Im in the throes of recipe creation.

Lisa Kingsley and Will Bortz for rewriting the recipes for clarity.

My agent, Stacey Glick, who is always available when I need her, and who supports me in so many ways.

My editor, Justin Schwartz, whose involvement and input really help these books come together.

Ghazalle Badiozamani and her team of accomplished stylists and helpers, who make my food look prettynot just tasty. Thank you to Monica Pierini, Jenna Tedesco, and Bridget Kenny for your great work. I so love working with you.

Thanks also to Bridget Nocera and Samantha Simon, who help me brainstorm crazy publicity and marketing ideas, as well as the whole army at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt that helped, without my even realizing it, make this book a reality.

I have been cooking with pressure cookers for over thirty-five years. (I feel old just writing that! Lets just assume I started cooking at two years old, okay?) My relationship with them has evolved. Just as in other long-term relationships, over the years I have loved them, used them, taken them for granted during busy times, explored their capabilities during times of rest, understood their giving nature better, and fallen in love with them again.

About five years ago, I discovered the world of electric pressure cookers. Soon after, the Instant Pot entered my life, and slowly, it took over my kitchen. In fact, as my life was taken over by a degenerative disease that often limited my mobility, I began to rely more and more on these devices that allowed me to cook a quick, nutritious dinner without babysitting, standing, stirring, and mixing.

My husband, Roger, and I were also on a weight-loss journey, and home-cooked meals were critical in this endeavor. Together, we have lost and kept off about 175 pounds, and cooking healthy meals at home was an important part of how we accomplished this feat.

My son Mark learned to cook with a pressure cooker when he was nineteen years old. I still remember when he mastered four different dishes in one day. Now, Mark is scary-smart, this is true, but its also true that pressure cookers are not that complicated.

I want to use this book, my blog (twosleevers.com), and my Facebook groups as a way to introduce you to the delights of cooking in a pressure cooker. I assure you, once you realize all that it can do, you may well find the other appliances in your kitchen, along with your stove, becoming sorely neglected.

If you are a novice cook, forget all your fears, your concerns, and your confusion. Just pick a recipe from this bookany recipeand make it by following the simple directions. Through the pages of this book, Ill help you create amazing meals. Just like the thousands before you who never cooked but now make my recipes nightly, you, too, can do this. If you are an accomplished cook already, you may enjoy the different shortcuts I use, as well as appreciate the wide range of flavors and cuisines covered in this book.

Theres something for everyone in this recipe book. I hope you enjoy it. If you run into issues, do be sure to ask me questions on my blog, twosleevers.com, or come join my TwoSleevers Facebook group, facebook.com/twosleever, which is filled with helpful, kind folks ready to lend a hand.

I grew up eating largely vegetarian meals. For the first twenty-plus years of my life, we ate meat maybe once a week, if that. This was quite normal for most of us in India, a country that is predominantly vegetarian, even today.

This is why I was quite surprised when I polled my TwoSleevers Facebook group and got the following feedback about vegetarian food from the group members. When asked what concerns they had about buying an Instant Pot vegetarian cookbook, heres what they were concerned about:

Use of pseudo meats in the recipes

Not enough protein in the food

Too much reliance on tofu or other processed foods

Not really whole/real foods

Meals might not be very filling (think light salads and veggies only)

Lets cut to the chase. This book should set all those fears to rest.

There are no pseudo meats or meat substitutes.

There is a lot of protein in beans and other natural sources.

Tofu is used in only three recipes where you would traditionally find it (kimchi jiggae, hot-and-sour soup, and as an option in congee).

As with all my other cookbooks, I use whole, unprocessed ingredients as much as possible. I do not ask you to use canned soups or prepackaged mixes.

What Ingredients Will I Need?

There are a few ingredients youll want to stock up on. This is not an exhaustive list of everything used in the book; rather, its a listing of some ingredients that omnivores may or may not have in their pantries. You should know that I absolutely hate buying an ingredient to use in just one recipe, so in most cases, these ingredients are used in more than one recipe in this book. Also note that you do not need to run out and buy all these at once. Just look at the recipes and see what sounds good, and then you can decide what you have to have right away.