J

There are many ways to defrost frozen bagels and using your Instant Pot to do it seems very cumbersome. But me being me, I've been in a situation where I had my Instant Pot to cook with and nothing else, namely: travel.

You see, when I cannot arrange a HospEx homestay through CouchSurfing or BeWelcome, I'll stay in a hotel that might or might not have a microwave. So I always bring my Instant Pot. I also bring an extremely good cooler with dry ice in so that I can keep frozen foods frozen, and bagels as well as some of my earlier mentioned portioned meals are usually enjoying the dry-ice chill.

So aside from taking a bagel out and leaving it on the counter overnight (which you know I don't do because I'm not one for thinking ahead), I figured out how to do it perfectly in an Instant Pot.

This is a vegan Lebanese dish of spiced lentils, though Egypt has a similar dish (different spice profile, natch). If you have lentils, onion, garlic, rice, and some olive (or other high temp) oil kicking around and you want a quick and filling meal, this is a good dish to try.

You will need two mixing bowls, a knife, a big stirring spoon, and a cutting board as well as the Instant Pot. Also, if you want, a third mixing bowl and a strainer that fits within it so that you can freeze up some vegetable stock.

Why would anyone write Instant Pot instructions for a frozen skillet meal? Small children taking every opportunity to try to destroy the house while you are slaving over a hot stove you cannot step away from, that's why!

I have not tested this recipe with any other frozen skillet meal but the one listed in the title, yet I highly suspect that it will work identically. If you try it, drop me a line and let me know whether my suspicions are accurate.

Let's talk about No Scrap Left Behind, which is one of my frequented subreddits. It is a movement all about taking the scraps from one recipe and using them in a different recipe. Since I'm a vegetarian, my scraps are almost always vegetables. And so, I make soup. In my Instant Pot. And so can you!

First, let me say that this recipe is not a quick way to put dinner on the table, but in terms of actual time you have to do any actual thing, it will only involve your human labor for about 10 minutes. Meets my patient-yet-lazy standards.