A meal from a rice cooker

What to eat when you are bored of the cafeteria food?  Or the cafeteria food is too salty and taste nasty?  But you don't have time and money to go out and eat.

Here is what I do.  I live in a student residence where there is no kitchen!  So we are forced to get every meal from the cafeteria.  I'm going to have kidney failure because they add so much salt to the food they serve :P.  Luckily I bought a rice cooker.  Its a life saver!  I make rice, noodles, all kinds of food in it!  I'll teach you how to do it (its reeeaaally simple).

Make use of what you have.

Step 1 Materials

Students are poor (like me).  These ingredients are all very cheap!  *all are in Canadian Dollars*

1/2 cup of rice (1/2 cup is good for one person)
[a whole bag was less than $5]

a fist size of ground beef (or as much as you like, you can put whatever kind of meat, but grounded ones are easier to cook)
[it says $2.28/bl, but I got this portion of meat for around $0.50]

1 or 2 eggs (I put 1 eggs this time)
[$1.XX per 6 eggs]

some salt
[Less than $2 for the whole thing]

some soy sauce
[free, from eating sushi]

some sesame oil
[from my instant noodle package]

or any kind of sauce you like

Comments

[kgreason]

Its definitely helpful and gives me a lot of ideas. I especially like the bit with the barley tea, completely unrelated but delightful and informative =) Unfortunately I have only a rice cooker and its a bit different than the ones everyone else seems to have (mine has the rice bowl completely separate from the heating element and main water bowl, more of a steamer) so Im a little worried about cooking time. Ill figure it out tho. Thanks for the helpful instructable. =D

[snipir]

Totally going to try this at some point :P Thanks!

[uhsnamih]

great work, making our hard student life easy

[Totysheep]

You shouldn't wash rice anymore. For a very long time now rice has been parboiled, enriched and sometimes flavored. If you wash it, it might become mooshi and tasteless real fast.

[chello2k9]

Unless you're eating organically grown rice then you have to wash the rice, your suppose to wash it to remove pesticides and chemicals/powders used to make it whiter. Parboiled rice? that's instant rice. In the US, you don't have to wash the rice because we don't use chemical/powder whiteners, and the FDA considers the pesticides safe. Additionally, rice is a starch, and it has a starchy build up, so getting rid of that makes it flakier. I believe for tradition sake, even in the US, you should wash the rice. We're to easy to throw away tradition, have your kids wash the rice, think about all your problems being the starch, etc....it's not going to kill you, it'll probably make you stronger. Also, fortification/enrichment is BS, just load the rice with goodness and love and you'll get all the enrichment you need.

[Musubii]

Yeah, I wash my rice too but I live in the US. But I definitely want to try this recipe! :)

[Coranu]

The reason why they say to wash it is to get rid of the "flour" that's built up from the milling process, which, when cooked, gets very sticky and makes the rice hard to remove. The water is supposed to be clear when you cook rice, optimally.

[h4xnoodle]

If you're buying white-man rice, sure.

[viviluk]

 thats what i heard too, i try to wash just a bit nowadays, cuz the instruction said so...

[i_am_an_awesome_fish]

 You could chop some spinach or cabbage finely and add it when you add the ground meat. It should steam enough to be tasty.

Or you could put spoonfuls of the rice/meat mixture on  lettuce leaves and roll them up. Make a dipping sauce out of soy sauce and vinegar!

[felinius]

The Korean way to do it is to put it onto lettuce leaves and add gochujang for a kicker.

[nathb1028]

Wow didn't know you could cook meat in a rice cooker.

[sassy8girl]

that actually looks pretty nice that teabag i have never seen anything like it

[container_gardener]

I wish I had thought of this when I was a college student! Good job~

[dorotheabrown37]

reminds me of my first apartment when i was fourteen and pregnant. u have to do what you need to survive

[paganwonder]

Thank you for helping me to keep the faith in people.

[Belmondo883]

look super!:)

[Superninjacamper941]

What I do, is chop up some onions then freeze them in a plastic bag and then when im ready to cook something throw a couple in my rice cooker and it works very well for me.

[doomsdayltd]

you know what you can make it vegetarian if you substitute the meat for tvp :)

[shantinath1000]

A bit of cut up chicken (skinless) mixed with the rice as it is cooking would be nice also. Add some peas and a dash of curry powder and chilies and Presto! Chicken and rice curry! (Use chicken broth from a can for added flavor) Or you could substitute unsweetened coconut milk for some of the water and have a whole different dish especially if you add a bit of Thai curry paste). If you had a way to saute some onions first and add to both dishes , that would be even better. You could also mix your rice with half a can of black beans and chopped ham (or sausage) with some coriander, cumin, a bit of hot sauce and a shot of Worcestershire sauce for black beans and rice.

[hInstance]

I know the feeling. My first fridge is the same size as this and I ran out of room frequently. I have now graduated to a larger one and my small one is now a food cupboard.

[ExpatCucina]

This looks delicious! Can I quote it with the instructables on my blog? www.expatcucina.com?

[viviluk]

 Ya sure!  Btw, I love your blog, might try to make some in the summer :)

[flyingkites123]

that looks quite unappetizing. haha

[viviluk]

 oh well, its definitely better than my cafeteria food

[Totysheep]

Really creative, only I would add some broccoli or peas and carrots too when you add the meat. You know, to make mom happy.

[noahh]

Brilliant! I just tried this, but with a few variations. I'm vegetarian, so I used tofu instead of beef, and I added some chopped-up onions and bits of carrot. Thanks for tonight's dinner.

[fireincarnation]

 These kinds of meals are very tasty. We make all sorts of things in the rice cooker. The rice cooker is so convenient when you don't have a kitchen. We also use a single burner, hot water pitcher, toaster oven, and a george forman mini grill, but we have a lot more space than a dorm room, (just no kitchen.) 

[lemonie]

You do well to feed yourself (others fail & go to the caf'), nice use of the rice-cooker. I'd have to add pepper &/or chilli to this, but the sesame oil is something I might go buy.

L