Rice Cooker Adaptations for Other Recipes

Rice cookers are wonderful appliances. The fuzzy logic switches stop things from cooking whenever the temperature goes over boiling- so it's nearly impossible to burn things. Since I've burned dry beans approximately seven million times this is wonderful. They're also safe to leave running alone and use a fraction of the power or gas that a burner does. I often leave the bean cooking part of a recipe cooking in the morning, and then return to add the final touches to the recipe. It's easy! It's cheap! It makes beans a reliable last minute meal! It's magical!

I should be getting paid to shill these.

The Moros and Cristianos recipe- black beans and rice cooked together- can be modified thusly: Cook one cup of black beans in the rice cooker with four cups of water for about an hour. (It might be more like an hour and a half.) When the beans are tender, add 1 cup of short grain brown rice and 1 and 3/4 cups water and cook again. (If you're using other rice, add a cup of that and as much water as your rice cooker recommends.) When it switches off, taste it. If something's not done, add another half cup of water and run the cooker again. The original recipe involved a mire poix and hours of simmering- now I usually garnish this with some kind of salsa cruda and an egg and call it dinner. (Serves two adults with a leftover breakfast. Adjust recipe accordingly.)

When I wrote the recipe for Annapurna dal, I complained that I took terrible photos. I haven't improved. Some things have changed: I'm now convinced that mung beans make the best dal- the very best- although lentils are fine too. I put a cup of legume into the rice cooker, I add several cups of water, and I wait about half an hour. While waiting, I chop an onion and saute it over low heat with half a teaspoon of salt and a good glug of oil. Near the end, I add half a teaspoon of curry powder and half a teaspoon of cumin. (One could caramelize five or six onions, and then keep them in the fridge for super simple- rice cooker only meals.) I mix everything together. There's no need to puree it, because things will handily reduce themselves to sludge. I eat it with leftover brown rice, yogurt, or lime pickles. (I have yet to learn to make these lime pickles) I often throw frozen or fresh broccoli into the steamer basket for five of the minutes that the beans are cooking. (Not the last five, because then I miscalculate and the broccoli turns to mush.)

Here are other rice cooker bean recipes that don't require adaptation: Chilean lentil soup and hummus.

Chilean Lentil End-of-the-Pay-Period Soup

I like the concept of meat as seasoning, but my world is short on recipes that make it work. I also like the concept of affordable, stick-to-your-ribs meals that use pantry staples, because every trip to the grocery store reminds me of all the things I want to cook. I like this recipe because C gets all nostalgic about it, most of it gets made in the rice cooker, and it's absolutely delightful.

I say 1/8 pound of lean ground beef, but really... I pinch off about a quarter cup and freeze it when I'm making some other ground beef rich recipe. I have also used a frozen hamburger patty, ground pork, chopped chicken thigh, and a slice of bacon. Versatility! End of the pay period meals!

Take a cup and a half of French lentils, and put them in the rice cooker with four cups of water until they are tender. (Or cook them on the stove, fine.)

Meanwhile, chop one onion, one peeled carrot, maybe a tomato if there's one in the fridge, and maybe a little cilantro. Saute in vegetable oil until the onion is translucent and salt vigorously. Add 1/8 cup ground beef (frozen is OK)and increase the temperature. Cook, stirring constantly, until the beef is cooked through. (This might involve stabbing frozen ground beef with a spoon. It helps with the aggression.) Add the vegetables and meat to the lentils and stir. Thin soup to desired consistency and simmer for 5-10 minutes to get a magnificent beefy flavor throughout.

I like it with a Chilean cabbage salad (I've been known to put the wonderfully sour salad into the soup), or just steamed broccoli or sliced tomatoes. It's also good for breakfast with a poached egg.

Serves 4.

Minestrone

The original recipe was raw- it still lives somewhere on VegWeb. I read said recipe on Game Night after the initial round of Nuclear War left me with no viable population and a looseleaf notebook full of Cheyenne's recipes. I scanned it, but I was trying to memorize the entire notebook in one gulp, so my recollections are somewhat fuzzy. I know that there was lovingly homemade tomato juice and raw mushrooms and all sorts of vegetables that are never in season at the same time. This is a loose, loose adaptation. It's loose enough that I might make the actual recipe later and post that too.

Serves 3.

Get 16 oz. pureed tomatoes from some source. Blanch 1 cup cauliflower florets and 1 cup bite-sized kale until tender. Warm tomato puree, 1 can white beans (loose adaptation!), and 1 cup water, stock, or white wine. Mix the juice of one lemon, the juice of one orange, and 1/4 cup miso. Add orange mixture to soup. There's no need to heat the soup past your preferred temperature for consumption. Add chopped parsley and cilantro, and garnish with fresh pepper and olive oil.

Eat.

Tom Kha Het: Spicy Thai-style Coconut Soup

There was a (embarassingly prolonged) period of my life where my wisdom teeth had opinions. Eventually, I had these dogmatic dentiles removed, and my life became much more pleasant.

Before I was wise enough to submit to minor surgery, my teeth would occasionally become infected. It was then impossible to eat anything other than soup- and being young, foolish, and overly concerned with my figure, I ate very little of that. I should note that I have a terrible temper when I'm hungry.

Thus, C got into the habit of bringing along a take-out bucket of this soup to every date. I envision him throwing it through the door before he enters my apartment.

Anyways: earlier this month, a friend from college sent me a bag of Kaffir lime leaves. The farmer's market sells fat bundles of lemongrass for a dollar, and I occasionally fall prey to the deal. Galangal is apparently essential to the flavor, but none leapt into my path and I did not know how important it was until my soup was already made and eaten.

Mix 4 cups stock with 1 16 oz. can coconut milk and 1 tsp brown sugar. Cut one stalk lemongrass into 1 inch lengths. Make several tears in a Kaffir lime leaf, leaving the center vein intact. Thinly slice pennies off of a 1 inch section of ginger or galangal. Measure out a reasonable amount of pepper flakes or chopped fresh pepper (1/2 tsp, 1 tbs.) Put all of the above ingredients into a pot and simmer for 20 minutes.

Slice and add 2-3 cups of vegetables to the broth. I personally like cabbage and mushrooms- any sort of mushrooms- but you might like sweet potatoes, carrots, thinly sliced tofu, or onion. In the summer, you might like those wonderful vegetables I try not to think about this time of year. Simmer until vegetables are tender.

Now you must "correct the seasoning". One could use fish sauce for a pleasant glutamate flavor, or one could use Braggs- 1-2 tsp of both. The juice of one or more limes is essential, as is a quantity of coarsely chopped cilantro. Salt and pepper to taste. Eat.

Annapurna Dal

It looks like baby poop. I should learn how to take decent photos.

This soup is named for the restaurant in Nevada City, not the mountain. The secret is using dried baby garbanzo beans- although I suppose you could use red or yellow lentils.

Serves 2.

Take one cup of the chosen legume. Simmer with three cups water until soft (45 minutes). Crush with a food processor or potato masher (or a fork).

While the garbanzitos are cooking, dice one onion. Saute at very low heat in 1 tbs safflower oil until caramelized. Add 1 tsp cumin seeds (or 1/2 tsp ground cumin) and briefly increase the heat in order to toast the spices.

Mix the caramelized onions and the legumes. Salt to taste. Eat.

Simple Sunchoke Soup- Bad Idea Fridays

I'll get to how this is a bad idea later. Serves 2.

Peel and slice 1/4 pound sunchokes (also known as Jerusalem artichokes) into 1/4 inch thick pieces. Simmer in two cups salted water until soft. Puree. Reheat and serve warm.

You can see that I served mine with half of a tiny steamed artichoke, a drizzle of safflower oil, and a sprinkle of sunflower seeds. That's right- every single part of this dish is from the Asteraceae.

I am unhealthily obsessed with dishes where all organic ingredients (the definition where the opposite is inorganic, not the one where it's conventional) derive from a single botanical family. I like how chemical compounds found throughout the family reinforce each other and interact in new and different ways. Also, I spend a lot of time driving in cars full of botanists; after you've played the alphabet genus game, there needs to be one more icebreaker game before you start talking about how awesome your cat is.

What sort of inspired interplay of flavors can one expect from this soup? Well, there's a crapton of inulin- a polysaccharide that human bodies are confused by, but beneficial intestinal bacteria love. Somehow this makes members of the Asteraceae oddly filling. To quote the typically insatiable C post-sunchoke soup, "Huh. Somehow, I don't really want to eat anything more." *

*This is not like my homemade bread. I swear it's edible. Tasty even.

There's also that distinctive sunflowery terpenoid that I can't find the name for- but when you have to identify a plant from one juvenile leaf, knowing this scent is a distinct advantage. Aspiring botanists should sniff all the ingredients for the soup.

There are also wonderful bitter alkaloids, although this soup lacks them. C prevented me from adding endive, escarole, and assorted other lettuces. Some people like a subtle flavor of gardens gone to bolt in their soup. Some people do not. The latter sort of people should not body check the former away from the stove. One has to get one's terrible ideas from somewhere.

Turkish Lentil Soup

This is part of my on going effort to cook less than three cups of legumes at once. It's easier with lentils because they take half an hour to cook.

Serves 3- and it's better on the second day, honestly.

Chop one onion (or two, if you want) and one carrot. (or two, if you want) Saute in 1 tsp oil until translucenty- 3-4 minutes.

Crush 5 cloves garlic with great force and mash with several pinches of salt.

Add 1 tsp each cumin, coriander, and cinnamon to the onions and carrots. (If you get confused and start adding all of the spices you own that start with C, consider chili and cumin.) Stir. Add the garlic mixture. Stir. Cook for 4-5 minutes.

Add either two chopped tomatoes, 2 tbs tomato paste (if you are the sort of person with open tomato paste in your fridge) or 1/4 cup canned tomatoes, crushed.

Add 1 tbs sugar.

Add 1/2 cup lentils. (I use green lentils {actually mud colored}, but I think French lentils are more authentic. The cooking time will increase to 45 minutes.) Stir rapidly, and then add 4 cups of water or broth.

Simmer for 30 odd minutes, until the lentils have started to come apart in the soup.

Garnish with cilantro and eat.

Porotos Granados- Hideously Californicated

The bread is most essential.

This is a traditional Chilean summer dish. Or it would be, if I were using fresh cranberry beans instead of dry red beans. And if the corn were not sweet corn and there were less of it. And if the squash were more cooked. And if the tomatoes were not canned and not in the stew but sliced on a plate next to it. And if I didn't include paprika- it's too spicy.

To quote C precisely, "It's nothing like the stew I grew up with, but if you kept making it forever, I would be happy." It's very hearty- it straight up sticks to your ribs. I figure some of my imaginary readers are looking for something that will make them feel full and also warm.

The next set of instructions is for people who still have problems with not cooking their own beans. Feel free to skip this and use two fifteen ounce cans of unseasoned small red beans and two cups of water. (or pinto beans)

Take two cups small red beans and simmer them in 6 cups of water for about two hours. Add water if necessary. When the beans are almost tender, carry on with the recipe.

Slice, seed, and peel about two cups of winter squash. (They do sell the prepared squash in the frozen section now, if you don't have a half squash moping around the fridge.) Simmer with the beans (and a bay leaf) until the squash is fully cooked and on its way to disintegration.

Slice 1/2 onion and saute in oil until tender. Add 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, and 1 cup corn. Saute briefly- until the corn is coated with spices. Add to the beans with a 15 oz. can of diced tomatoes. Simmer for about 15 minutes- the texture should be something like chili, so add water if needed. (Or steal the broth with a spoon and wander around sipping a mug of bean juice.) Eat with lots of bread. No, more bread than that.

Sick Person Soup

I further desecrate Japanese cuisine.

One of the best things about miso is the ability to make a single serving of soup in five minutes. You might say that's one of the nice things about canned soup, but I affirm that miso is slightly cheaper, slightly lower in sodium, and has never been consumed cold out of the can while standing outside in a downpour. That is to say, miso does not taste like sadness and poor career decisions.

As I stated earlier, I am currently ill. This soup contains several ingredients that holistic medicine proscribes for colds, and three that evidence based science suggests have merit. Why yes, I did go to the health food store in a small town with an obvious cold. Why yes, I did get advice. The pseudoscience will be scattered throughout, the evidence will be at the end. Think of it as a treasure hunt.

Take two cups of water. Simmer over medium heat and add the following ingredients.
Two sliced shiitake mushrooms. Chinese medicine suggests this as a remedy for upper respiratory disease.
One tbs cilantro leaves- used as a cold remedy in India.
(The goal is for the mushrooms to get cooked through, as twelve units of mycology have made me terrified of uncooked mushrooms. Prepare the following ingredients, and then add them just before removing the broth from heat.)
Three cloves garlic, smashed and chopped. The Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans suggest this as an antibiotic and as a gentle way to lay waste to disobedient bacteria and virii colonizing your body. And it's supposed to sooth sore throats.
1/2 inch grated ginger The entire western world and China suggests ginger for colds and coughing.
Juice of 1/2 lemon. Vitamin C, need I say more?
Blend in 2 tbs. red miso. I'm kinda reaching here- it's supposed to rebalance the hormones and suchlike. Reduces the risk for breast cancer- always a good plan. Salty, so my reduced tasting ability is sated.
Drink very hot. If you feel less abraded and lazy than I do, you might consider adding some red pepper flakes- also a holy rain on your internal fauna- or black pepper, or a grated chile.

What does science suggest reduces the duration and severity of a cold? Drinking lots of water, drinking hot liquids, and getting adequate electrolytes. Which is lame, and does not allow me to imaging thousands of viruses writhing in terror. "No, no, increased hydration! Aiiiiii, soothed mucus membrane tissue! Anything but that!

Californicated Miso Soup- Traditional Style

It's not quite the same without the shaved dried fish.

Although I've had only one kind of miso soup ever, there's apparently a theory of appropriate ingredients. You should have one ingredient that floats and one that sinks, one with a strong flavor and one with a mild flavor. I've been happily thinking of combinations ever since.

Serves one.

Heat 12 oz water in a small pan. Add two chopped scallions, about 2 oz. sliced silken tofu and 1 tsp dried wakame broken into tiny little pieces. (The things that make this recipe Californicated are leaving out the large fish flakes because of overfishing and feeling guilty when one realizes one has purchased California grown wakame- one of the top 100 invasive species in the world in your own precious ecosystem.) Simmer for five odd minutes, until the wakame is unfurled and edible. Take two tbs. fresh red miso. (Most packages have serving sizes neatly delineated. Trust them in case I'm wrong.) In a separate bowl, blend miso with some of the pathetic excuse for broth you made. Remove the rest of the broth from the heat, and gradually blend in the miso mixture. Never ever let the soup boil after you've added the miso- it'll make everything gross. Put into a bowl and consume.

If you have personal objections to wakame, or cannot procure it, cilantro is a reasonable and tasty alternative.

Stir-fried brussels sprouts, cream of tomato soup.

If I ever have readers, y'all will look back on the four month gap in posting and shake your heads. I deserve rebuke!

Regardless, the above was my lunch today. It was delicious. Gaze on it with envy. Recipes follow.

Stir fried brussels sprouts: (15-20 minutes)
Buy a stalk of brussels sprouts at the farmer's market because they are just unreasonably pretty. Cut... fifteenish sprouts off of the stem, remove tough outer leaves, and rinse. Slice lengthwise into fourths. Dice 1/4 red onion. Smash and skin 4 garlic cloves. Heat 1 tbs vegetable oil on medium high heat. (Yes, if this were a real stir-fry, it would be very high heat. You wouldn't have read this far for fried brussels sprouts, and if I'd said sauteed, half of you would have adjusted the temperature downward. I regret nothing.) Fry the onion until the edges are brown. Add the brussels sprouts and garlic. Salt and pepper to taste. (A few red pepper flakes wouldn't be bad here, but I'm feeding a Chilean.) Fry, stirring frequently, until brussels sprouts are tender enough to eat. (7 minutes? You may need to add more oil.) They usually get a little burned when I make them, but I like that. I also like them crunchier than my Midwestern parents- if you don't want your vegetables fighting back, you might want to splash a little water in the pan and cover them for the last minute. Eat

Vegan Cream of Tomato Soup.
There are two tricks to this soup. One is the mirepoixesque base of sauteed red bell pepper, yellow onion, and cilantro. (My Puerto Rican roommate taught me this. Her stews were excellent, though a bit heavy on the chorizo and bullion cubes.) The other is the addition of good quality bread partway through the cooking process. (A cookbook taught me this. Such is life.)

Take two pounds really good tomatoes. Boil water, immerse tomatoes for fifteen seconds, and then remove skins and stem scar. Do not squeeze out seeds and juice. When it's not the best time of the year (tomato season!) you can use good quality canned tomatoes (I think they're 22 ounce cans). Cook them longer to remove the canned taste, and use as little of the canning liquid as seems reasonable.

Chop one yellow onion, one red bell pepper, (Or orange. That would be awesome. In fact, I used a couple of red jalapeños, the product of another impulse buy at the farmer's market. Congratulations, you've found the driving force in my culinary experimentation.), a bay leaf, and a handful of cilantro. Saute in 1 tbs vegetable oil in a large heavy pan until onion is soft and translucent. Sprinkle with salt. Coursely slice in peeled tomatoes, 4 smashed and peeled cloves of garlic, and 2 slices good quality white bread, torn into 1 inch pieces. Bring to a simmer, and let bubble away for ten minutes. Cool slightly, and then pulse in a food processor or blender (in two or three batches) until slightly chunky or very smooth, depending on your preference. Return to heat, warm slightly, and then thin as needed with broth, white wine, beer, or water.

If you wanted to have the analog of a grilled cheese sandwich with this, I'd steer away from vegan cheese which has a distressing texture when warmed. Try mashed avocado on toast- perhaps with some toasted sesame seeds.