Instapot Persian Barley Lentil Soup With Spinach

Unexpectedly we received a surprise in the mail - an instapot with two cookbooks. We aren’t in any hurry - especially lately - to cook things in shorter time. But it would be an interesting experiment. We sorted through the recipes and found a few, but we didn’t have several of the ingredients. We finally got what we needed with the latest grocery delivery and prepared to make the Persian barley lentil soup with spinach last week. My husband is the primary cook in our house and doesn’t follow recipes - he just magically puts things together and dinner is always delicious. Using limes and lime zest is unusual for us. We followed all the instructions and started first with sautéing the onions, carrots and garlic, then added the liquids. The soup was cooked under high pressure for fifteen minutes - which ended up being not quite enough. We put the pot on the stove and cooked the soup another 15 minutes. When it was done, the chopped spinach and cilantro were added. Along side the soup was some yogurt to add in as desired. It was very good - so much so that we made another batch yesterday. However, the results were not as spectacular. There was too much lime this time. Maybe it was the fact that we had already made it once and should have tried something else. In the end it was indeed an interesting process. Maybe spaghetti will be next.