I <3 My Rice Cooker

It’s been crazy-insane-o-busy around here these days. I haven’t been doing much cooking from scratch. Instead, I’ve been having a love affair with my humble rice cooker.

Do all rice cookers come with a steamer basket? That little thing turns my cooker from an Unclutterer-worthy appliance into basically my very own personal chef. You can make whole meals in this thing! Here’s the very first rice cooker meal I put together. It’s amazing, and it serves two.

Busy Night Dumplings and Sunflower Rice

• 1c brown rice
• 2.5c water

• two servings of your favorite frozen dumplings (I usually make about 12 dumplings for the two of us.)
• 1.5c chopped greens, like kale or collards

• 2T Veganaise
• 2T Siracha (or your favorite hot sauce, to taste)

• handful of sunflower seeds
• olive oil
• soy sauce

Put the rice and water into the main part of your rice cooker, and give it a good stir. Then, place the greens and dumplings into the steamer. Put on the lid, and turn the cooker on.

While that does its thing, combine the Veganaise and hot sauce in a small dish, and set that aside.

Forty or forty-five minutes later, you have perfect rice, dumplings, and veggies! Mix the rice and the greens in a bowl with the sunflower seeds, olive oil, and soy sauce.

Plate up the dumplings on their own, and serve with the dipping sauce on the side.

I would be ashamed to tell you how often we’ve been having this for dinner lately, but I am not sorry! There have been some other rice cooker meal experiments, and I promise to document it all here!

[Image Credit: Creative Commons photo by Jess Lander]

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