The Virtuous Rice Cooker and that Evil Toaster

I love my rice cooker unabashedly.  I don't quite understand the voodoo that it uses to always know when the rice is done, but I don't care.  It cost about $20, it's from Canadian Tire, and it gets the job done.  I decided that I should probably understand how it works, so here's what I found out:
http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tools-and-techniques/question35.htm

For the reasons described above, the rice cooker is able to do white rice, brown rice, basmati rice, wild rice, rice blends, cous cous, quinoa, and any other grain I've thrown at it. I've also started to put other things in the rice cooker.  Dangerous, I know.

My first foray into challenging the rice cooker was adding raisins and cinnamon, before asking it nicely to cook my cous cous.  (I secretly think that it is my nice way of talking to the rice cooker that causes it to cook everything correctly, and not the answer that fancy know-it-all website gave, but who knows.)  Once it had turned off, Mark and I had this lovely fragrant cous cous, with plump, juicy raisins.


So, a few tips for making your rice-cooking experience more exciting.

1.  Use different grains.  Try different kinds of rice, grains or even blends.  You can find these anywhere.  Check your rice cooker guidelines, but I always add two parts water for every one part grain.  I err a little on the side of too little water, just so things don't come out soggy.

2.  Use dried fruit or vegetables.  When putting rice and water into the rice cooker, add some dried cranberries, raisins or sundried tomatoes.  Stick with the same rice to water ratios, but while it is cooking, it will plump up your additions and infuse your rice with the flavour.

3.  Use aromats.  Yeah, that's just a big fancy word for stuff that imparts flavour into the dish it's cooked in.  For a formal definition, I found this was the best:

http://ruhlman.com/2009/01/aromats/


I find herbs are easiest to do with the rice cooker, as you typically don't have enough time to really benefit from the flavour of the classical aromats (celery, onion, carrot).  You can start cooking things before putting them in the rice cooker, but that kind of defeats the purpose.

4.  Get creative and combine things.  I have a lovely little basil plant that lives on the shelf above my sink.  Combining some fresh basil and sundried tomatoes in the rice cooker with basmati rice makes a lovely side dish.  Sometimes I cheat and just combine the main flavours listed on a bottle of salad dressing - it always seems to turn out well.

While I was researching this post, I found this website that gives some rice cooker reviews, as well as ideas for complete meals done in the rice cooker:  http://bestricecookerratings.com/complete-meals-in-rice-cookers/

Rice cookers are amazingly handy for their pure time-saving, hands-free magic.  But I love mine because it loves me back.

I am however pretty upset with the toaster.  I've realized that it doesn't use a heat sensor and relies purely on time, therefore giving me unevenly cooked bread and insensitivity to different things that I put in it.

On the other hand, I did cook two veggie burgers in it yesterday....