Comments on: help! should we buy a rice cooker?

By: shelterrific » Blog Archive » real life test kitchen: glazed salmon with broccoli rice

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:57:40 +0000

[...] for an easy broiled, glazed salmon that is served over rice with broccoli. I use my handy rice cooker to to make the rice, adding broccoli to the pot just before the rice is done. While that is cooking [...]

By: Gene'

Gene' — Wed, 21 May 2008 15:38:59 +0000

I got a rice cooker last summer at a garage sale for two dollars and found myself using it constantly. It made fabulous brown rice, perfectly cooked. I also started using it to cook hot organic oatmeal in the mornings with chopped dried apricots or dried cranberries and it did a great job. I could get ready for work and it would cook on its own. Then I started cooking red lentils, oatmeal in the rice cooker and mixing it with an egg and whole wheat grains (that I’d cooked earlier in the rice cooker and was storing in the fridge) chopped red onion and some hot red pepper flakes and a small shake of italian seasonings and making up veggie burgers and cooking them in some olive oil in a black cast iron pan. The BEST veggie burgers I’ve ever had, yummie! and no cholesteral. Put a slice of cheese on top of these veggie burgers and they are super delicious (put the lid on the pan for a minute and the cheese melts beautifully). That 2 dollars I spent on the rice cooker were well worth it. It is sort of like a slow cooker in that you don’t have to tend it, but much faster and if you think outside the box, a great cooking tool. p.s. red lentils have a spicy taste just by themselves, so that, I think, is why they have become a veggie burger staple at my house (I and both my dogs love them). Plus I do like being able to have perfect brown rice at hand and not have to watch it cook, or even be in the kitchen, very convenient if I need the time for some other activity like walking the dogs, etc. Good luck!!!

By: shelterrific » Blog Archive » real life test kitchen: roasted chicken with chickpeas and tomatoes

Wed, 21 May 2008 13:54:37 +0000

[...] minutes and serve with yogurt sauce. I dished it out with a simple rice pilaf (made in a pan, not a rice cooker). It was pretty damn yummy, especially the roasted chickpeas that had a nice, nutty crunch. Click [...]

By: Holly Donaldson

Holly Donaldson — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:34:38 +0000

I can’t believe I’m the 49th person to reply to this but I just could’t stay away! I’ve never used one. Instead, I use Mark Bittman’s brilliant recipe………..
I boil a big pot of water and a little salt and add a cup or two of rice.
As soon as it is cooked, I drain it like pasta. No measuring ever and “perfect rice every time”.
Thanks Mark Bittman!!!

By: shelterrific » Blog Archive » five things we learned last week

shelterrific » Blog Archive » five things we learned last week — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:00:49 +0000

[...] You are huge fans of rice cookers. At this writing, Angela’s question about buying a rice cooker has been answered with 48 comments, 36 of which are emphatically in [...]

By: Annie

Annie — Sun, 11 May 2008 16:31:05 +0000

We use our rice cooker all the time. We have a Zojirushi and I think that as a brand, they are far, far better than anything else around. The quality of the rice is completely different than what you get when you use another rice cooker (I think we used to have an Oster). If you use good sushi rice (like the Koda Farms brown sushi rice which is pretty easy to find out here in CA.) the results are really amazing- we even started eating rice for breakfast after we got this rice cooker. Love it!

By: Emily

Emily — Sun, 11 May 2008 14:26:33 +0000

We go through about 50 lbs of rice a year, for two people. Both of us are perfectly capable of making rice on the stove. Our rice cooker (a super cheap tiny Oster model) died from the use we put it through. It had done about 10 years of hard duty, so it was allowed to die.

Our next appliance purchase will be another, larger rice cooker. Both of us are sick and tired of the saucepans always being dirty because we had rice. We’re tired of having a meal and concluding “no rice, there’s nothing to cook it in”.

If you don’t eat much rice, it’s not a sensible purchase. But if rice is a staple, get a rice cooker. Then you’ll *sometimes* have clean saucepans that get used for something other than rice.

By: Val

Val — Fri, 09 May 2008 20:23:13 +0000

I have the rice cooker in the pic and like it for the most part. I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned this, but if you like to make brown rice, beware…for some reason, the bubbling water likes to seep out of the pot and leak everywhere! This only happens when I cook smaller quantities of brown rice (about 1.5 cups uncooked). Making more seems to help occasionally. However, this rice cooker does white rice perfectly, sans mess.

By: Lesley

Lesley — Fri, 09 May 2008 14:51:42 +0000

Not that you need another comment on this topic, but to address the comments on figuring out how to measure rice to water, the Zojirushi has markings on the inside of the bowl; if you put 1 cup rice, you just fill to the #1 line. You seriously can’t screw it up.

By: chad

chad — Fri, 09 May 2008 13:22:29 +0000

nice. chad and rice cooker WIN !!!!
bring on the rice cooker!!!