I Love My Rice Cooker Recipe Book

Poor rice cookers. They used to be so trendy, but now there are all those multi-cooker, slow-cooker, pressure-cooker gadgets that claim to be able to cook absolutely everything. Including, possibly, rice.

This cookbook takes the opposite tack. It attempts to give you multiple reasons to keep your rice cooker on your counter. It's not just for rice, the cookbook says. You can make soup in it, too.

The interesting thing about The I Love My Rice Cooker Recipe Book (no author listed) is that it's designed for use with very basic rice cookers - the ones with on/off/warm settings and nothing else.

Surprise, surprise, that's not the sort of rice cooker I have. Mine will cook Gaba rice and has multiple settings for white rice, but it's not the sort of cooker that this book is aimed at.

But that's okay. I'm resourceful. All of the recipes in this book could easily be converted for slow cooker or stovetop recipes. I mean, seriously, you just need basic higher and lower heat. It's not that hard to convert them. And, if your kitchen is being remodeled and you have to rough it with your rice cooker, you can use this book to make everything from meatballs to crab cakes to pasta in your rice cooker.

And yes, there are rice dishes, too.

While this is probably not an essential book, it could be really handy for college students armed with rice cookers in their dorm rooms, or anyone who happens to have one of those old style rice cookers that needs more use.

Chicken with Red Rice from Slow Cook Modern #AbramsDinnerParty

The Abrams Dinner Party isn't really a party ... it's a group of bloggers who are receiving free cookbooks from Abrams for the next couple months. Since I'm a cookbook fiend, I'm giddy happy about participating in this.

I just got Slow Cook Modern by Liana Krissof, and dived right in.

The hook with this book is that it tells you want to toss into the cooker in the morning before work and then there's usually another step after work, usually adding ingredients that cook quickly or need to be warmed.

I've made one recipe so far. It was called chicken with red rice. The rice was red from tomatoes, not the naturally red rice. It wasn't a particularly pretty dish, but it was comfort food for sure. I mean, chicken, rice, tomatoes and spices ... yeah, that's good. There was a cilantro-lime topping that was included as a garnish, but I didn't make that. My cilantro plants were ... very dead ... so that wasn't going to happen.

That was probably the most simple recipe in the book, but I had leftover rice and I had chicken thighs, so it was a perfect fit. Basically, it was skinless chicken thighs, cumin, oregano, paprika, crushed tomatoes and salt going into the slow cooker for the first part of the process. When the chicken was done, it was tasted to adjust seasoning, and the the rice was added so it could warm up for serving.

It wasn't the prettiest dish on the block. That green garnish would have made a huge difference in the presentation. Or even some slices or chunks of avocado. But it was dinner time, I was hungry, and I wasn't about to run to the store for cilantro. I devoured it. YUM! This was a keeper. But my presentation was ... ugly.

Also, the lighting wasn't great. But ... yeah ... not pretty.

See! Even food bloggers eat ugly food sometimes. Gah. That's really ugly.

However, I got smarter with the leftovers. I still didn't have fresh cilantro, but I pulled out a bottle of cilantro-jalapeno-lime sauce that I happen to love. I artfully garnished ... uh ... not-so-artfully poured some sauce on top of my reheated leftovers, and it looked a lot prettier.

You want this. You really really want this.

The flavors also enhanced the chicken and rice, so I completely endorse the original garnish. A couple of sprigs of fresh cilantro would have made this photo even better ... but remember that dead cilantro? Yeah, still dead. And I haven't been to the grocery store today.

So, now that I'm not hungry any more, let's talk about the book a bit, mkay?

The recipes in the book don't shy away from using ingredients you'll probably have to shop for. Most of the vegetables are fresh, so you'll be shopping for those, right? At that point, you can pick up the fresh herbs or other things you don't have. However, most of the ingredients are common enough that a well-stocked grocery store should have most of them - no need for scouring obscure websites for odd things that you've never heard of. So ... it's not pantry cooking, but it's also not project cooking where you have to plan weeks in advance. It's good for weeknight dinners.

There's also not a lot of processed food in this book, except for the occasional frozen vegetable or canned tomato products, like the crushed tomatoes in the recipe I made. The chicken stock (or other stock) occasionally called for in recipes could be your own homemade stock, or you could buy it, whichever is better for you. But otherwise you can assume you'll be shopping for individual. mostly-fresh ingredients rather than canned soups or packaged mixes.

While slow-cooked food tends to be sort of monochrome as everything cooks together, this book pays attention to eye-appeal, suggesting side dishes or garnishes that will add some color and punch to the plate.

Some of those side dishes aren't cooked in a slow cooker - like cornbread or pesto or quick pickles - but it gives you a good idea what sides or garnishes to use with the dishes. I mean, if you happen to pick up some corn muffins at the store or you open a jar of mixed pickles instead of making every bit from scratch, that's fine, too.

The recipes in this book aren't your basic soups and stews. Sure, there's chili and chicken soup. But there's also Herb Butter Braised Turkey Breast, Jungle Curry Stew, Lamb Harira, and home made Quark. Lots of recipes that are pretty darned creative. Tarragon and Creme Fraiche Chicken might be next on my list.

Or maybe the Caldo de Pollo, because sometimes chicken soup isn't just chicken soup.

This post is sponsored by ABRAMS Books, as part of the ABRAMS Dinner Party.

What do these three books have in common?

At first glance these books would seem to have nothing in common. I mean, there's one book dedicated to a high-end appliance, one that's meant for super-simple cooking and another that's written by a celebrity chef.

There are at least two things these books have in common, and it's certainly nothing you'd guess. I got all of them at the Housewares Show in Chicago, and they're all autographed. Yup. Scribbled upon by the authors.

The Vitamix Cookbook was written by Jodi Berg, and it's the first cookbook from the company that's more of a general book than one dedicated to (and included with) specific blenders. Of course, all the recipes take advantage of the power of a Vitamix. Judy Berg, by the way, is the president and CEO of the company, and the great-granddaughter of the founder. The book has some great-looking recipes and beautiful photos. And the recipes seem very approachable for a home cook.

Obviously, the book is written for folks who own Vitamix blenders, but I'm sure creative cooks could find a way to make these recipes using a different blender or maybe even a different piece of equipment. But still, I like my Vitamix, so that's what I'm going to use.

The middle book, Dump Meals, is written by pitch-woman Cathy Mitchell, who you might have seen on late-night television pitching her Dump Cakes cookbook. Whether you like her or not, she sells a ton of cookbooks. People like quick and easy recipes, and that's what this book delivers. Well, the easy part, for sure. But since they're made in a slow cooker, they can take a while to cook.

Since the point of this book is fast, easy, and few ingredients, there are a lot of shortcuts, like using spice or soup mixes for flavoring. If you're opposed to those, you could certainly use your own individual spices.

The book is written specifically for Crock-Pot slow cookers, but I have no doubt they could be adapted to other cookers or even stovetop cooking.

The final book in the trio, Essential Emeril, is of course written by Emeril Lagasse. The photos are mouth-watering, and based on my experience with other Emeril cookbooks, I'm quite sure the recipes will work. No doubt. I kind of want to make everything in this book.

Well, maybe except for the risotto with truffles, because I can't afford that kind of stuff. Fortunately, most of the recipes are more in my budget range. Although the book isn't promoting a particular appliance, Emeril has his own line of cookware, gadgets, and other cooking goodies.

So ... there we go. You'll probably see recipes from these books on my cooking blog, Cookistry, when I have a chance to browse through them. Time will only tell which one gets used the most.