Split Peas with Purple Potato, Cauliflower, and Carrot, served with Millet-Brown Rice Ramen Noodles and Heirloom Poona Kheera Cucumber (No Added Fat)

My daughter and I enjoyed visiting the farmers' market and brought home two big bunches of basil to make pesto as I did last week, purple potatoes, green tomato, a lovely light yellow cauliflower, peas (my daughter enjoys eating them as soon as we buy them so few made it home), and a heirloom Poona kheera cucumber I've not seen before, originally from India. I thought that I'd make a vegetable and split pea dish; split peas take 8-10 minutes with a 1:3 ratio to water to cook and potatoes take 7-9 minutes when cubed and 10-12 minutes whole (for baby potatoes, and these are small, maybe 1 1/2" in diameter).

I tried something new with the pressure cooker today. To start the water heating, I sometimes add boiling water instead of room temperature water. Instead, I put the water in initially and used the slow cooker button to start the water and subsequent ingredients heating. When all the ingredients were in, I cancelled the slow cook program and went into high pressure cooking, only then putting the top in.


Ingredients

• 1 cup split peas (I had green split peas and used them, but yellow would be fine)
• 3 cups water
• 1 clove garlic, finely (1/8") diced
• 1 medium carrot, cut into 3/8" slices (mine yieled a cup)
• 1 green tomato chopped into 3/8" cubes (about 1 1/4 cups)
• 2 cups cauliflower florets
• 2 1/4 cups potato cut into approximately 1" pieces; I used 6 purple potatoes
• 1/8 t turmeric
• 1/4 t lemon pepper (or freshly ground black pepper)
• 1 cup chopped (1/4") sweet (or other) onion
• Approx. 1/2 t salt (or to taste)
• 1t lime (or lemon) juice

Process

1. I rinsed the split peas several times then put then into the Instant Pot pressure cooker, along with water, garlic (I skipped as I was out of garlic, alas), carrot, green tomato, cauliflower, potato, turmeric, and lemon pepper.
2. I cooked for 9 minutes under high pressure.
3. When the pressure cooker was done, I let it sit for a few minutes, slowly let out the remaining pressure, and carefully opened the pot.
4. I mixed in the onion, salt, and lime juice, and served.

I had a packet of millet and brown rice noodles from Lotus Foods; I made these easy gluten-free tasty noodles but didn't use the included packet, opting to mix in some chickpea miso, instead. I served the heirloom cucumber with some hemp seeds, lime juice, and salt.

I was ready to make pesto as before by blending briefly 2 cups tightly packed basil, 3 cloves garlic, a vegan bouillon cube, and 3/4 cup  water then adding 1 1/2 T nutritional yeast and 3/4 t salt and blending very briefly. But I was out of garlic! I refrigerated the basil and hope to make pesto tomorrow.

Results

Dinner was quite good! My wife particularly loved it. My daughter doesn't like potatoes but ate everything reasonably nicely.

Ideas for the future

I would have liked to have added ginger and jalapeno in the main course, but skipped for my daughter; I ended up doing it for my wife and me, and it was a welcome addition. My wife suggested some dried coconut would be good with it. The dish was a little liquidy - I served mostly solids, but used a bowl for seconds for my wife. I like it more solid and may want to explore similar dishes in the future with a ratio of 1 : 2 instead of 1 : 3 of split peas to water.