Chili with pressure cooker beans

It's my same old 1970's recipe for chili, updated to remove the meat and fat and now made with (mostly) pressure cooker beans. One of the best ways to avoid the BPA in canned vegetables and beans is to avoid the canned products themselves. So yesterday, I used my pressure cooker to make pinto beans and kidney beans for chili. I say (mostly) pressure cooker beans because I could not find dried dark red kidney beans at the grocery stores in my area. Dark red kidney beans taste so much richer than regular red kidney beans that I had to add one can of them to the chili. At least I reduced exposure to BPA by a lot and maybe next time I will leave out the dark red beans.

I am still a novice with the pressure cooker so I looked for help in cooking beans. Jill Nussinow, the Veggie Queen, has a blog, "Green Cooking in a Pressure Cooker" and dvd's with instructions. The most useful and most accessible information was provided by Miss Vickie . It was a great help with the steps and timing, but some experience is necessary. I didn't remember to turn down the burner once pressure was reached so the beans were unevenly cooked with some still quite hard and some already mushy. But, guess what? They tasted fine after stove top cooking for an hour this morning.

I really like the speed of food preparation with the pressure cooker, so I will try it again.

ADDITION
Thank you to Jill Nussinow, The Veggie Queen, for a link to her video on how to cook beans. Jill tells you everything you need to know about the basics of pressure cooking beans in just over 2 minutes.

My old chili

For decades my family has enjoyed my own version of chili. In fact, this recipe was mine before I was a mother; that's how old it is. Until recently, my chili was made with ground beef, and now it is made with an excellent soy product, Boca Ground. I am not sure that my husband would remain a vegan without the Boca products, but happily, he eats this chili as often as I make it.


I serve it with a salad and a loaf of rustic bread. Ever since enjoying a loaf of No-knead bread made from a recipe from Jim Lahey at the Sullivan Street Bakery via Mark Bittman at the New York Times, I have baked bread at least once a week. I have used only all purpose flour, half and half all purpose flour and bread flour, and half and half whole wheat flour and bread flour. All of them are delicious.

To make about 8 servings of chili

1 5.5-ounce can tomato juice plus a can of water
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, pressed
2 green bell peppers, coarsely chopped
1 red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 jalapeno pepper, seeded and minced (optional)
1 28 ounce can plum tomatoes with juice
1 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes
3 tablespoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon cayenne or more depending on how spicy you like it
1 teaspoon dried basil
1 bay leaf
1 28 ounce can kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 28 ounce can pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 or 2 4-ounce packets frozen soy protein ground burger

In a 5 quart casserole, add the tomato juice, water, onion, garlic and peppers. Cook about 15 minutes over medium heat until the onion is soft, but the peppers are still firm. Add tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, chili powder, cayenne, basil, bay leaf, and beans. Cook over low heat about 30-40 minutes.

Remove the bay leaf. Add the soy ground burger and heat until hot throughout, about 15 minutes. Serve very hot.