I'm still trying to cook. It's still problematic. But, I was feeling inspired by Deepvali.

So out came the InstaPot. I have a new cookbook, The Complete Indian InstaPot Cookbook by Chandra Ram. Fried my onions. Toasted my spices. My kitchen smelt so good.

Added the chickpeas. Cooked it all. Checked the chickpeas. Cooked it longer. Checked the Chickpeas. Cooked it longer. Sent Jonathan out with the kids to play. Cooked it longer again. Eventually gave up and ate Chana Masala with too firm of chickpeas in a sauce that was now too dry.

Possible problems:

• Are my chick peas too old? Probably. I brought them from Canada.
• Was there not enough liquid? It looked pretty light on the liquid when I poured the chickpeas into the pot. There was certainly not enough liquid after I let the steam and pressure out repeatedly.
• Was I cooking on too low a pressure? Maybe. I used my usual "Normal - High Pressure" setting, but there is a "High - High Pressure" setting.

I think I'll try cooking these chickpeas up separate and see if I can get them cooked. The recipe gave adjusted instructions in case you were using cooked chickpeas. I've also determined that I need a rice cooker or another InstaPot. I've been using my InstaPot to make rice, and it comes out perfect, but waiting until the meal is made to make rice takes way too long. I'm just going to get our new Helper to buy one she likes.

We had festive dinner table though. We brought out our souvenirs from Little India. We had chosen 10 traditional little candle holders ($5 in total). I knew the girls would want to touch, so we also bought some battery-operated tea lights. They flashed cheerily away in multi-colours. The girls couldn't leave them alone; they reorganized the candles into different patterns over and over again.