Pressure Cooking

ByElizabeth

I admit it.  A couple of years ago, when a friend was waxing poetic about the virtues of pressure cooking, I was skeptical.  Shortly after the second or third conversation on the topic in a short space of time, I came across Lorna Sass’s “Vegetarian Cooking Under Pressure” at the Lantern (used bookshop).  Seeing it as a sign, I bought the book and a pressure cooker (an Aeternum — pricey, but sturdy and easy to use).

What I like best about the pressure cooker is that it cuts the cooking time of beans or soup from 1-3 hours to 20-35 minutes.  Kitcheree (indian rice and lentils) cooks in 15 minutes.  I’d estimate that in the two and half years I’ve had my cooker, I have saved over 200 hours of cooking with gas time.  Not sure how much cooking gas I’ll have to save before I’ve made up for the energy to manufacture and ship the pot to me, but I should cross that at some point in the life of the pot.  Even better is that I can come home after a full day at work and cook dishes with dried beans or slow to cook grains without staying up all night.

Once you put the cooking ingredients in the pot, get it up to pressure, turn down the flame, and set the timer, there is no need to watch the pot.  So today, for lunch, with only about five or ten minutes of prep time, I have rice (with saffron and amaranth made in the rice cooker) and pot beans (coco rubico from the Dupont Farm market, seasoned with celery, onion, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, dried chiles brought back from Tucson, and dried bay leaf, epazote, and mexican oregano from my own garden).  Start to finish about a half hour (I did presoak the beans).  Able to continue working except for the minor prep time.  Wonderfully content to have nourishing, delicious food to warm and inspire my day.  I do better work (I do work better) when I eat well.

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    When we were winding up and preparing to be locked out of our jobs, I said to a co-worker that I planned to get out a stepstool and clean the cat hair off of the ceiling fans.

    He replied that he had plenty of yard work to do.

    I was out in the garden for some time this morning.  A squirrel or other garden terrorist had knocked some almost ripe and some green tomatoes off the vine. I brought them inside to turn into something, I don’t yet know what.

    What I thought when I was in the garden picking peppers was that I bet there are a lot of nonessential feds doing yardwork today.

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    I’ve given away lots of starts and divides and have plenty more, as well as cuttings. Locals—let me know if you want some. Soon I will be fully vaccinated. If you will be also, we could even do some yoga.

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    An Armload of Radishes

    ByElizabeth

    This morning I went to my community garden plot around the corner before I got ready to head into Georgetown to volunteer at The Lantern Bookshop.

    I ws delghted to find enough snowpeas for a good-sized stir-fry and several zucchini almost ready to be picked (I only get zucchini at the very beginning of the season before the squash borers invade, but if I start early enough, I can get a few pounts of squash and a couple of meals worth of blossoms before I surrender and plant something else).

    The tomatoes were flourishing (no sign of blight. If you have your own plants, keep an eye close for blight; it’s aleady been seen in Maryland. Cherry tomatoes are more resistant, so I’ve concentrated on those).

    I should have the first cucumbers big enough to pick next week, and I have plenty of lettuce.

    The radishes, though, had exploded. “Should I have a radish-themed dinner party?” I thought. “What am I going to do with all of them?” I am not especially fond of radishes. I plant them because they mature very early, they thrive on benign neglect, I have friends who like them, and they give the same crunch I’d prefer from a cucumber weeks earlier.

    I’ve also discovered I like them cooked. Just as you can prepare turnips and their greens together, it also works well with radishes.

    As I was walking home with a bunch of radishes that I could hardly get my hands around, I bumped into a neighbor. I don’t know her well, just recognize her face. “Do you want some radishes?” I asked, hoping I did not sound like I was begging. She hesitated, but then seemed to realize that she would be doing me a great service by accepting them. “You can cook the greens,” I said as I handed her a nice-sized bunch, “and also the radishes themselves if they are too strong.”
    “I’ve never done that,” she said.

    Here’s the recipe I gave her on the street (with a little more detail here):

    Wash radishes and their greens well. Cut radishes into thick coins (this works best with oblong radishes sich as French Breakfast). Cut off the white part of stem nearest radish. Then cut the bunch horizontally so that you have half inch wide shreds. Mince some garlic, onion, and ginger. Stir-fry aromatics in peanut, safflower, or canola oil until translucent. Add the radish coins and stir until well-coated with oil. Add greens, stirring continuously until all the greens are wilted. Add some rice wine vinegegar and cook until absorbed and the grrens are just tender. Take off heat and sprinkle with soy sauce or Bragg’s Amino Liquid and toasted sesame oil to taste.

    “What a nice morning,” my neighbor said, “fresh radishes from the garden and a recipe.

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    Late Spring Greetings–Making Time and Space (Web Version of E-Newsletter)

    ByElizabeth

    Dear Friends,
    I hope you are thriving to the greatest extent possible under your current circumstances in this outrageous Spring and weathering (pun intended) the wild fluctuations between apparent late winter and seemingly already mid-summer.  My garden has been uncertain at several moments, but partly due to careful attention at strategic points and partly out of love and luck, it is thriving–providing lots of herbs and greens and promising lots of tomatoes and peppers and beans.

    I write this letter a bit later than might have been desirable, as the summer session at Willow Street has already started, and my partial sabbatical from yoga teaching evidently has begun.  In practical terms of time and space this is the first time in almost eight years that I am not working weekends (first Saturdays and then Friday evenings) and commuting out to Takoma Park from Capitol Hill to teach.

    It took much contemplation to come to this partial sabbatical. Being a part of the Willow Street Community has been and continues to be important to me, and I have learned an incredible amount from the opportunity Suzie Hurley, and Joe and Natalie Miller, gave me to share my enthusiasm for the practices and the teachings with the fabulous variety of people who come to Willow Street as students.  It was an honor and a continuing source of inspiration and focus to be able to study with so many fine fellow teachers over the years.  And change can be hard for me.  It also is hard to let go of something that has been profoundly important.

    For my optimal health and well being, though, there just was not enough time for me to work full time and go where my heart is currently leading and also continue to teach on Friday nights or Saturday mornings.  I had to make a shift or start fraying around the edges, becoming less happy with everything.  Better to make some space to breath and feel and think without pressure.  Freeing my weekends fully will give me some of the space and time that I need at this crossroad in my life.  I am moving, I hope, towards a phase where there is more emphasis on nurturing self and relationship more deeply and exploring other creative pursuits with more seriousness.   To be able to work intelligently and with good will as a civil servant at this time and to continue to engage in our society that is in so much upheaval, leads me, for my abiding health and expansion, to the garden and the cat and my own practice and the growing and very special relationship that began on the trip to India (no value judgment implied by the order).  It also will be lots easier for me to study; going to a weekend workshop will no longer require my getting a substitute to cover my absence–expect to see me as a fellow student at the Friday nights of weekend workshops at Willow Street.  New ideas and opportunities for teaching will likely come, but not for the moment.

    I continue to lead the all levels yoga practice at William Penn House on Tuesday nights where you will be warmly welcomed by the regulars whatever your age or ability level and will be sure to enjoy the fruits of my new and varied explorations in yoga and other practices, while still keeping to the fundamental structure of class influenced by Anusara methodology.  Please join us.  A portion of each student’s payment supports the work of William Penn House.  While there is a suggested amount, if funds are a challenge, just pay what you can.

    Feel free to e-mail me if you are a more experienced practitioner who is interested in the Wednesday night practice or if you are interested in arranging private sessions or semi-private practices with your own small group.

    I look forward to seeing those of you who are local on a Tuesday night or at a workshop around town or in the neighborhood and also continuing to share photos and contemplations on this latest phase of my yogic (yes, I know that isn’t a real word) on the blog.

    Peace and light,

    Elizabeth

    clouds

3 Comments

  1. I just used my pressure cooker for the first time last week. Not the best results, but I’m sold on the time and effort. Somewhere I have a recipe for key lime cheesecake made in a pressure cooker. :-/

  2. Not sure I get why one would use the pressure cooker for a key lime pie (does that not take trivets and water baths and not much less time than the regular thing?). I suppose if you didn’t want to turn on the oven and preferred a key lime pie that was more like a steamed pudding than a no-bake pie, it might be worth the trouble. Like judicious use of yoga props to enhance and expand our experience, rather than to detract from our ability to grow, I am inclined to use the pressure cooker only in ways that enhances the product rather than just seeing how creative I can get with it. Anything that benefits from long, slow, tenderizing cooking in a heavy pot on top of the stove works well in the pressure cooker.

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