A Make-Ahead Day

Several months ago, I got a fabulous new rice cooker.  Rebecca had been carping on the inadequacy of the one I had, and singing the virtues of the one she had.  I had to admit that I was a little jealous of hers, but was feeling a certain defensive attachment to my relatively new, but seemingly antediluvian model.  All it did was cook rice!  What good is that!  Before she goes to bed, Rebecca sets hers up to have a nice oatmeal porridge breakfast ready when she has finished her bath and is ready to eat it in the morning.  Before she goes to work, she tells it to have her dinner ready when she arrives home.  No matter what sort of rice she is preparing, her rice cooker knows just what is needed. I think the kicker might have been perfectly cooked polenta.  How can one argue against that?  Finally, I no longer could, and so I gave in and got one.   I had planned to tell you all about it at the time.  I prepared something luscious and beautiful, and  took pictures.  And then I got distracted and onto something else, so you missed out on the rice cooker news flash.

Brown rice made in the new cooker - a success!

I made lovely brown rice (always a challenge in my old one), and some great polenta (not even possible in the old one,) but I had yet to try out its spectacular “having-dinner-ready-when-you-get-home” function.  The time had  come!  On Sundays, I sing with the Women’s Schola at the 1730 Mass, and when I get home, I am usually totally knackered and hungry as a wolf.  Knowing that when I arrived home, if there was nothing ready, I would eat something awful just to quickly fill the void, I decided to have some yummy oat porridge ready on my return.  I used Rebecca’s recipe and put in an apple, a banana, and some raisins.  It was a wonderful thing to come home - tired, bedraggled, and starving - to find this repast waiting. 

Delightful Dinner Oatmeal

The next week I had polenta and some roasted vegetables waiting.  What a delight.  Almost like having a cook preparing a meal while you are out.  Another day, I made porridge again, this time with blueberries.  Purple oatmeal!  Not very photogenic, but delicious.

As you can see, I am not one who requires breakfast food in the morning and dinner food in the evening. I think apple pie, pizza, or left over Chinese food make an excellent breakfast, and scrambled eggs or oatmeal make an delightful dinner.  

First rice prepared in new cooker

PS.  The above oatmeal is made from steel-cut oats.  I wrote about making oatmeal with rolled oats several years ago.  You can read that  here.  As you can see, I am a great fan of oatmeal.  Odd, since in my youth, the only way I liked oats was in a cookie.