Vegetarian Chili

Taste: Pretty good

Cleanup: Cutting board, Knife

Ingredients: All available at Publix

This is my first attempt to adapt a recipe to the instant pot. I'm basing this on the Vegetarian Chili recipe in the book "The Spectrum" by Dr. Dean Ornish.

Step 1: Gather spices

I need the spices all ready to dump in with the veggies after I saute them for a bit, so the first thing I do is dump the spices into a plastic cup so they'll be handy:

Two tablespoons chili powder

Two teaspoons ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

A few turns of the black pepper grinder

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon (the book calls for 1 teaspoon, but that overwhelmed the whole pot of chili when I made it without the instant pot, so I'm going for a lot less). [I've since decided to drop the cinnamon completely].

The book calls for 1 teaspoon of ground coriander, but that is really the same plant as cilantro, which is a horrible poisonous weed, so I leave it out on general principles.

Step 2: Chop and saute veggies

Time to dice and saute the veggies. Cut these up and put them in the instant pot:

One large (or two medium) red onion.

One large red bell pepper.

One minced jalapeno.

Two carrots.

Four garlic cloves finely minced.

With these in the pot, add a small splash of vegetable broth so it isn't completely dry, and saute for about five minutes, then dump in the spices and mix well and saute for an additional five minutes. Turn off the Instant Pot so nothing carbonizes while you open cans and wot-not.

Step 3: Add remaining ingredients

After the veggies are soft and the spices are mixed, dump in the remaining ingredients:

One 28 oz can of crushed Italian tomatoes

One cup vegetable broth.

1/2 cup of lentils (uncooked, this is one of my mods, I expect the pressure to cook them).

1 can kidney beans (drain first)

1 can lima beans (drain first)

The book calls for bulgur wheat, but I can't ever find any of that, so I'm just inventing a new ingredient: Some frozen veggie ground beef substitute from the freezer aisle. I'll go with 1/2 cup.

Note: I've discovered I can get bulgur wheat at the Fresh Market store not too far from my house, so I could try the real thing next time I make this.

Step 4: Instant Pot

Cook this at high pressure for 15 minutes, natural release, stir, and eat it up.

Finished my first batch and it came out pretty good. The lentils were indeed cooked. Not sure the ground beef substitute contributed anything since it pretty much vanished during cooking, but it didn't detract from the flavor (I'm now wondering if grape nuts would be a substitute for the bulgur wheat). Even with just 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, I could still taste the cinnamon, but it didn't overwhelm. I don't like really hot and spicy food, there is just a little heat from the cayenne and black pepper, but it isn't the sort of sweat coming out of every pore type heat. If you like it hotter, I assume you could add more hot spices, but I don't think I'll be changing the spices much (other than completely leaving out the cinnamon).

Made this again, and use brown rice instad of bulgur wheat. I made the rice from a recipe I found on the web: 1 cup brown rice, 1 cup water, high pressure for 15 minutes, natural release for 5 minutes, then manual release. It does seem to make pretty good brown rice. I set it aside then added it in after cooking the rest of the chili.

The book says you can freeze this, so I may do that with the remaining servings and see how they taste when re-heated.

The brown rice version came out with perhaps too little liquid left. Since the brown rice recipe calls for 15 minutes, and I'm also cooking the chili for 15 minutes perhaps the next time I make this I should try just putting in the uncooked rice (maybe just a half cup) along with the uncooked lentils and adding an extra cup of broth.

GAAH! Tried these theories in my second batch with dry rice and lentils and an extra cup of broth. Don't work. The instant pot overheats when I try to use pressure cooker mode. I seem to have salvaged it with a long period of slow cooking and adding extra water. Took a while for the rice to become edible instead of crunchy.

Another variation I tried in this batch was adding some smoked paprika (maybe a teaspoon, I didn't measure it) since I had some and it seemed like it might be good.

Perhaps it is just impossible to do this all at once. I could probably cook the lentils and rice together first, then set it aside and add it back in after cooking the veggies with the spices and adding all the other ingredients as well. I could then let that simmer for a while on slow cook mode. (Hardly counts as a pressure cooker recipe that way though).

One good thing: This last disaster did in fact produce a really tasty batch of chili. Just got to try and reproduce it without all the instant pot warnings.

I also tried freezing it, and it thaws out nicely in the microwave at low power for a long time, and tastes just as good as the non-frozen batch. Nothing seems to be damaged or get a weird taste or texture after freezing.

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