Perhaps the perfect hot dinner for Family Gym Night: Rice cooker technology.

Thanks to Jen at Conversion Diary for pointing it out -- one of those ideas that's so brilliant you wonder why you didn't think of it yourself.

The boys' swimming lessons were so timed this spring that our family had to leave for the Y at 5:35 p.m. and arrive home a little bit after 8 p.m.  We've been eating dinner late rather than early.  After exercising, we're all really tired and really hungry -- almost any kind of food will do as long as it can be shoveled into our maws immediately.  But then we all want to go to bed.  So:  very little mess is allowed too.

I tried "making sandwiches."  It takes too long.  This kid wants mustard, that kid wants plain cheese, the other kid pouts if the sandwich isn't on toast, I like lettuce ... Sandwiches are too personalized to be a quick dinner. 

Soup in the crock-pot, served with crackers, would seem to work pretty well, but somehow it fell flat.  I think that's because the sorts of soups that do well in the crock-pot just aren't my family's favorites.  We like a rich bone broth simmered in the crock-pot for 48-72 hours, but then we like it made into soup where the individual vegetables are still apparent, like minestrone.  Noodle soups don't do too well in the CP either.  I mean, they're good *enough,* just not ... perfect.  The other thing is that most slow-cooked things have to be put together much earlier in the day.  Sometimes that works out for me and sometimes it doesn't.

Cold salads of pasta or grains and legumes, made ahead, may become a staple in the summertime.  I can think of two off the top of my head:  a lovely salad of pasta with tomatoes, tuna, mint, and capers, dressed with lemon and olive oil; and a salad of lentils with red peppers and red onions in a balsamic vinaigrette.  The whole family loves both of those.   As of now we are still enjoying hot food for dinner.  

I have occasionally left things baking in the oven while we're gone, when the baking time matched the expected time of being gone -- cabbage rolls once, that worked pretty well.  But the truth is that this makes me nervous.

I'd forgotten about the rice cooker!

OK, I'm not promising this is really a gourmet selection, but here's how I adapted Jen's recipe (scroll down) for super-easy rice and beans:

Make brown rice in the rice cooker, ahead of time (so that it will be done at least a few minutes before I have to leave).   I used 1 and 1/2 cups of short-grain brown rice, and filled the rice cooker up to the "3 cups" mark (my rule of thumb, in the rice cooker, is to use double the water for brown rice that I would for white rice).

When the rice cooker clicks over from "Rice Cooking" to "Keep Warm," dump in the following (don't bother to drain):

              1 can of Black Beans With Cumin and Chile Spices
              1 can of prepared kidney beans (mine contained both sugar and salt)
              1 can of Muir Glen Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes.  

 Stir it up and close up the rice cooker, leaving it on "Keep Warm," and go away for a couple of hours.

Serve  in bowls topped with shredded cheese.

Nobody is going to mistake this for gourmet cooking, believe me.  It's kind of bland; you could use two cans of spicy beans, or a spicier variety of beans.  But.  For a healthful, meatless dish you can come home to,  and  for "my kids gobbled it up and asked for seconds," it is very hard to beat.  Obviously there is room for personal variation in seasoning.

 The next day, the leftovers make a nice side dish, or my personal favorite use for rice pilaf type dishes:  for breakfast, topped with a fried egg.

The rice cooker may be my go-to implement for Family Gym Night, because it cooks things quickly and then keeps them warm for a couple of hours.  Compared to the slow cooker, it just seems... much more... nimble! 

What else could you make in the rice cooker that might work?  You'll be wanting to avoid meat that needs actual cooking.  We could certainly have porridge for dinner -- steel cut oats with brown sugar and raisins.   I would think that you could make a vegetable curry with a bag of frozen vegetables and some curry powder... especially if you made coconut rice to start!  Hannah told me of a recipe she used to make in college, involving rice, peas, onion, and tuna; I'm not sure the kids would like it, but it certainly sounded workable.

Comments

[4ddintx]

I've just been thinking that our family could really benefit from a rice cooker. What kind do you have?

[bearing]

I have a Tiger brand rice cooker that I bought at an Asian market. It's the sort you might see at a Chinese lunch buffet, keeping the rice hot. It is not cheap, I think mine cost $80 or more. Mine is sized to receive up to 8 cups of dry white rice.

I have only ever used better-quality Asian rice cookers with nonstick inserts. I'm kind of biased towards the rice cookers that are obviously aimed at people for whom rice is a daily staple. But that's not to say that the inexpensive little Sunbeam or Oster cookers are necessarily bad -- I'm just a little suspicious that they are not going to be as sturdy.

[4ddintx]

Thanks! I have an Asian market I shop at all the time. I need to look. A Vietnamese friend and my Korean Aunt both recommend the Zojirushi, but they are even more costly than what you mention. I need a really big one for my brood, so that adds even more cost.

[ScottChicago]

Our Zojirushi's instructions warn against making other foods than rice in the rice cooker. That needn't stop us from doing so, but I wonder whether the residue from the steam from other things like beans and tomatoes might gum up the works somehow. Maybe that's the reason for the warning? Don't know.

[bearing]

ScottChicago, the *steam* isn't going to cause a problem (steam off rice is the same as steam off beans!) but it is true that some foods gum up the top. Steel cut oats for my morning porridge is a classic example: it sort of blurps thick liquid out the top when it cooks.

However, for the cooker I have, the lid disassembles for cleaning. I've never had any problem cleaning the oats out of it since then. (Some of my commenters also suggested adding fat to reduce foaming -- 3 tbsp coconut oil added to the oatmeal seems to do the trick.)

[bearing]

By the way, the Zojirushi FAQ page seems to say that it won't hurt your rice cooker to put other things in it.

http://www.zojirushi.com/servicesupport/faq/faq_ricecooker.html#q9