Kathy Hester, author of The Vegan Slow Cooker cookbook, gave me a chance to write about using the pressure cooker for some of her slow cooker recipes. Not one to turn down a challenge, I went for it.
It turns out that you can easily use slow cooker recipes in your pressure cooker with some adjustments. As long as the recipe uses liquid, the pressure cooker will work out great. Read that post now.
As I said on Chow.com, the pressure cooker is the slow cooker on steroids. Read more about that here.
Pressure Cooker Mexican Quinoa with Black Beans (Adapted from Kathy Hester’s recipe of the same name except for Slow Cooker at the beginning of the recipe)
Serves 4 or more
1 ½ cups bell pepper , chopped
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 to 2 teaspoons chili powder, or to taste
½ teaspoon ground cumin
¾ cup quinoa, rinsed well and drained
1 cup soaked black beans, drained
1 ½ cups water or broth
1 14.6 ounce can diced tomatoes, not drained
Salt and pepper, to taste
Heat the pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the peppers and sauté for 1 minute. Add the garlic and spices and sauté another minute. Add the d
rained quinoa and toast for 1 minute. Add the drained black beans and water or broth. Lock the lid on the pressure cooker. Bring to high pressure over high heat. Reduce the heat to maintain high pressure for 6 minutes. Remove the pot from the heat and let the pressure come down.
Remove the lid, tilting it away from you. Stir in the tomatoes. Taste and add salt, more cumin extra chili powder or whatever you want to make this taste the way that you like it.
Turn this into
Mexican Quinoa and Black Bean Burgers (gluten-free, vegan)
Makes 8 to 12 burgers, depending upon the size
Sauté 1 sliced onion and 1 clove minced garlic. Add 1 cup fresh or frozen corn and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until the onion is translucent.  I also added more spices to the mixture.
Add the cooked vegetables to the cooked quinoa mixture in a food processor. Pulse a few times. Add 1/2 to 1 cup baby (or quick cooking) or regular rolled oats. Process by pulsing a few times until the mixture gets thicker. Do not process too long.
Remove the mixture and let sit a few minutes. Form into patties. Â Let those sit for a few minutes to take shape.
Place the burgers on a parchment lined baking sheet and bake at 375 degrees F. for 15 minutes. Turn and bake for another 10 minutes until both sides are crispy.
You can freeze these burgers. I do that by wrapping them with wax paper and placing in a plastic bag. To reheat, I put them in the toaster oven and toast them
a couple of times until they are heated through or rebake them at 350 degrees.
Oh, so tasty. And really not much work. Will you make them?
Leave a Reply