BM #113 : Week 2, Day 3
Theme : Protein Rich Dishes

Like I mentioned in an earlier post, I had a bunch of cookery books from our library before they closed for COVID 19. All the books are renewed remotely by them to avoid unnecessary fines. I had three instant pot books and I have used all three multiple times by now. One book is Vegan, which is more useful for me as I am a vegetarian. The other two books have a lot of meat based recipes, so a good amount recipes are of not any use to me. None of us are going to try every single recipe from a book anyway, so a book is great if you get one good reliable recipe that you can try again and again. I have a really big Hershey baking book with me. I have tried only two recipes from that book and those two recipes are something I have prepared many many times now. So for me, that book is a winner even though there are other 500 recipes that I am never going to prepare :-)

So back to the recipe here, this is from Stefanie Bundalo’s book Quick Prep Cooking with your Instant Pot. I have already tried couple of recipes from this book with good results. The lentil sauce is just one among those. It’s been awhile since I used the slow cook function in Instant Pot, so it was nice to try that. I made this in the morning so that we could serve the sauce for dinner with spaghetti.

Read on for the recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups water
• 1 can crushed tomatoes 14 oz
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 teaspoon dried Italian seasoning
• 1 teaspoon vinegar
• 1 cup green lentils
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, sliced
• 1 cup carrots, chopped finely
• Salt, pepper and red chili flakes – to taste
• Parmesan cheese, for sprinkling on top
• Cooked spaghetti, for serving

Method:

1. Add everything except the cheese and spaghetti to the instant pot. Mix well. Check the salt and pepper amount and adjust if needed.
2. Keep the lid, leave steam vent open (in VENTING position). This is important. Cook for 6 hours in “Slow Cook” mode. The book mentioned 10 hours, but I stopped at 6 hours and it was still fine.
3. Once the lentils are cooked, mix everything well and serve on top of spaghetti or noodles of your choice. Sprinkle with some more Italian seasoning and Parmesan cheese if preferred.

Check out the Blogging Marathon page for the other Blogging Marathoners doing this Week