Meatless Monday: Vegan Dad

There are a few really excellent vegan cooking blogs out there. One of my personal favorites is Vegan Dad. I honestly don't know how this family does it. From what I can gather from his site, he's a full time professor, has four (I think?) kids, I'm not sure if his wife works, but I think so, and they make all sorts of amazing and inspired meals. And their party food? Uh-mazing!

So, the other night for dinner, we made his Pressure Cooker Ethiopian Stew. Let me just say off the bat: this meal was the easiest meal I've made in a long time. You do a little chopping, a little measuring and throw everything into one pot. Cook for 20 minutes and voila! It's also one of the tastiest meals ever, and will be added into the regular rotation at Chez Parker. Now, as is typical for me, I had to wing some of the recipe. I didn't have enough of everything to make the berbere, for example, so I just kind guesstimated on most of that. I also couldn't find yellow split peas so I used green. But this recipe is really forgiving of those types of things. Very adjustable to taste. We also happened to have leftover injera in the house from take-out Ethiopian the week before and I can tell you first hand that eating it with injera was fan-freaking-tastic. I haven't found an injera recipe that I can make at home - Ethiopian recipes in general are hard to come by - but I hear good things about the recipe in Vegan Lunch Box by Jennifer McCann.

We had some of the leftovers on brown rice the next day and that was equally tasty, so don't let a lack of injera hold you back from trying this dish. This is a meal that no one will miss the meat or dairy in, I promise. It is flavorful, filling and super easy! And if you don't have a pressure cooker, I'm super you could just just put everything in a pot, cover, bring to a boil and then simmer for a while and get the same results. The pressure cooker just makes it cook faster. I promise you will not be sad if you make this for dinner.

Since we still have a few bites left, I think I'll go heat them up for lunch! Yum!!