Leftover Sticks and Stones Pizza, Lentil and Corn Stew

We were looking forward to going out to see Nrityagram Dance Ensemble performing nearby tonight. I wanted to put a quick meal together and had a few slices of leftover pizza from Sticks and Stones - I heated a slice for my daughter with vegan Daiya "cheese", and a slice each for my wife and myself cheeseless (my Dad doesn't eat leftovers, so he had a larger salad instead of pizza).

I liked the thick brown lentil dhal that I made in early December, a month and a half ago. Though it doesn't really go with pizza, I decided to use my Instant Pot to make something similar and honor our time constraints.

Tomorrow, I am taking some food over to friends who just had a baby a dozen days ago on January 11th. As I described when we had a baby about the same age, fenugreek is supposed to help with lactation, and I thought I'd include it in tonight's dinner to see how it comes out pressure cooked. Here is what I did:

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup lentils (I wanted to use either green or brown, but had a bit of both, so just combined them)
• 3 times (i.e., 1 cup) as much water
• Vegan bouillon cube
• 3 small Yukon gold potatoes, cut into 1/2" cubes
• (Optional) 1 carrot cut into 3/8" slices
• 1 compressed cup greens (I used kale leaves, stems removed)
• 3 scallions cut into 3/8" pieces
• 1 cup corn kernels (I used frozen)
• 1/4 t turmeric
• 1/4 t fenugreek seeds
• 1/4 t salt (I used kala namak, black salt)
• Additional water equal to 1/8 as much as used before (i.e., 1/8 cup)

Process

• I put the lentils, first batch of water, bouillon cube, and potato (I wanted to include carrot but just had two carrots, and preferred to save them for the meal I'm bringing over tomorrow) into the pressure cooker and cooked on high pressure for 12m.
• I let it sit for a few minutes then slowly released pressure and removed the cover of the Instant Pot.
• I added the remaining ingredients - greens, scallions, corn, spices, and 1/8 cup water - and cooked on high pressure for another 3m.
• When the cooking was done, I gently released pressure and served, along with the reheated pizza and hemp seed-topped tomato.

Results

The pizza was, of course, good. We really liked the lentil dish! I thought that the consistency was nice and thick. The fenugreek didn't add more than a subtle but good taste. I liked the texture that the corn added. It was a good meal!

Ideas for the future

I should try similar dishes with additional combinations of types of lentils. I'll bet some celery would be good in this.