Rice Cooker Fun!

For my birthday this year, my parents gave me a rice cooker, a crock pot and a little George Foreman grill. Thank you, parents! I think it's because I never ask for anything in particular for my birthday (which I guess makes it a little impossible to find a good gift for me considering how picky I am sometimes), so buying me cooking supplies/kitchen appliances is a pretty safe bet.


But I'm also scared of the unfamiliar and since I'd never used a rice cooker before, the idea of using the rice cooker intimidated me for a while. Finally, one night, when my boyfriend insisted we watch the movie Hidalgo -- a quasi-Western set in the Middle East -- which was close to 2 hours in length, I decided it was the perfect time to experiment with the rice cooker. My mother had also given me some brown rice and my rice cooker adventure began.... Turns out brown rice takes about two hours to be done. And since I hadn't accounted for two hours (I assumed the rice cooker would be more efficient than me cooking rice normally), I ended up eating scrambled eggs with Feta as a snack instead. I may be wrong, but I think that's probably a very healthy, tasty snack.


Anyhow, my next adventure with rice was Basmati rice. There's this amazing Persian restaurant close to where I live and their rice is divine. And since I want to also make delicious rice like them, I decided to use my rice cooker to make some Basmati rice. Well you can't just eat Basmati rice plan -- I guess you could, but that's not a meal then -- so I also made some tomato sauce and served those two with chicken. It was delicious and healthy, but I need to learn some portion control. I made that rice on Sunday and I still have half a pot of it left and my boyfriend and I have eaten about 5 or 6 servings of that meal until now. 


So here's how I did it,  although you may want to cut down on the ingredients and not make enough for a small army. 


I put two cups of rice in my rice cooker. Also, it turns out that you're not supposed to measure cups of uncooked rice in regular cups but in standardized rice cups (?) which are 180 mL, not the regualar 240 mL. 


It only took about ten minutes to cook (as opposed to the brown rice which took a century!)


In the meantime, I got a can of diced tomatoes, put it in a pan and started heating it. In a separate pan, I began sauteeing some bell peppers and onions. As soon as they started heating up and looking like they were ready, I moved them over to the first pan with the diced tomatoes and mixed everything together.


Then I used a pot and cooked some pieces of chicken through. I originally just cooked/boiled them in water for a healthier alternative but then added some oil to make it tastier. 


And here is how a plate of this concoction ended up looking. Deliciously healthy and satisfying. 

First Month Anniversary Dinner!

My boyfriend and I are celebrating our five month anniversary in about two weeks. Obviously, the title gives away how slow I've been at updating. I don't have any good excuses except "life happened." 

But here's the story anyway...

So when it was almost our first month anniversary, I thought I'd treat my boyfriend to his first taste of my culinary adventures. I could have gone with something safer/simpler or maybe even something I had cooked before, but I don't like repeating recipes in the kitchen unless there's a good reason (like training a puppy or being enrolled in one too many self-improvement classes). And since I wasn't short on time or creativity at the time of our anniversary, my boyfriend got a pretty good meal: chicken breast with sauteed onion/vinegar/cranberry sauce -- its formal, chef-friendly name escapes me now -- and hasselback potatoes. 

I figured the chicken breast part of the recipe wasn't too crazy, so I won't provide an in-depth explanation of how I made that part. Really, I just got the chicken breasts at the grocery store, put them on the stove in a pan (not having either an outside or inside grill, a pan was this girl's best friend at that point in time) and let them cook through thoroughly. 

While the chicken breast was cooking, I melted some butter in a second pan, cut some onions in pretty small cubes and sauteed them. I then put some vinegar and cranberry sauce in there for extra taste. Since it's been so long since I actually made the recipe, I forget how much of each I put in. 

Now, for the funnest (and most time-consuming part) of that dinner: the hasselback potatoes. There's a little bit more prep time than I usually like for any of my recipes, but I knew the outcome had to be delicious.

First, I got about eight small/medium sized red potatoes, cleaned them off and started cutting them. I cut them about halfway to two thirds through all the way across in increments of about a quarter or a fifth of an inch at a time. You can look in the picture below to see what I mean. 

Cut potatoes about 2/3 of the way through at increments of 1/4 or 1/5 inch.

Then I cut some garlic clovers thinly and put them between each section of potato. Don't worry if you're not a huge garlic fan, because the taste won't be overwhelming once the potatoes are cooked through. After you've put all the garlic in, put some melted butter on the bottom of a baking pan, and some salt sprinkled all over and rub the potatoes around until they're all covered in the butter/salt. 

Put the sliced garlic cloves between the sliced potato wedges.

Put the potatoes in the oven for about 40 minutes. I forget what I put the oven on, but really it's like you're making baked potatoes. You can take them out when the tops are all golden brown. 

Now, the next part will be the dollops of sour cream you put on top. Delicioius!!! You get about 8 oz of sour cream, you're supposed to put real garlic and parsley for better taste, but I didn't have any in my apartment, so I just used garlic powder/salt that had parsley sprinkled in there, too. Put the garlic/parsley in there to taste. Mix it well and put it in dollops on top of the potatoes once they're out of the oven and ready to serve.


Here is a picture of our final meal all put together. Good luck to everyone who tries this recipe!

Final dinner. Yum!