Virtues of a Rice Cooker

Allmyusernamesaretakengeeze

At first I thought, "Cool, now my rice won't burn when I forget it." I love my rice cooker. It beeps 3x to tell me it is done and then just keeps it warm for about 45 minutes. Then it shuts itself off.

One day it was too hot to bake and I wished I had a way to bake chicken without heating up the house. Hmmmm, didn't the manual say you could steam vegetables? I wonder what else I can do with this thing...clickity-clickity-clickity ....The clouds parted and the sun shone down and lit up my little bit of the world. There on the manufacturers site for anyone who took the time to look...recipies. Not only could I steam a couple of pieces of chicken in this thing, I could insert the whole bird. I could make soup. I could bake a friggin molten lava cake!


Why, oh why didn't I have one of these babies when I was in college?

geekgamergirl

I don't have a rice cooker, but a crock pot. I wish I were better at recipes that were more "summery. After working all day, cooking in our miserably hot house is the last thing I want to do. I guess I'm too lazy, though; I hate crock pot recipes that require another 30-40 minutes of prep or post work. If I wanted to do all that, i wouldn't be pulling out my crock pot!

Allmyusernamesaretakengeeze

The crock pot is a magical device that always has ready-to-eat food in it when you come home from work.

I seriously used mine hard-core last year. Every morning I'd dump some stuff in it, set it on low & slow, and food would be ready when we came home from work. Rocked my little world. Any left overs just stayed in it and I added new ingredients into it when I'd drag the thing out of the fridge in the morning.

2 dinners: Drop a bunch of vegetables in (celery, carrots, onions, potatoes *5 min prep*), throw some chicken leg/thighs on top and salt & pepper it. Dinner is ready when you get home. After dinner, pick the bones out of what is left, dump some broth in and throw it in the fridge. Chicken soup tomorrow. Just bring it to a boil and dump in some frozen egg noodles or make a quick dumpling when you get home. (dumplings: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/dumplings/ )

I pretty well just throw whatever in there. No recipe, just stuff. Sausage and cabbage is nice. Left overs get turned into soup the next day. Just have to watch it if you're trying to slim down. Potatoes seem to be drawn to the crock pot...