Lil' Smokies

This classic recipe is my roommates and neighbors favorite recipe of mine. Maybe because of how saucy and yummy it really is. But nothing is really that special about it. It’s just little smokies. No big deal. But they make it a big deal. About every Sunday night, we sit down and eat little smokies and tell each other about our week or whatever. Simple chitchat. Blah blah blah.

Okay, back to the recipe. This is what you need. You obviously need a rice cooker. You need 2 packages of little smokies and a bottle or jar of BBQ sauce. Here’s your shopping list:
• 2 packages of little smokies
• 1 bottle/jar of BBQ sauce.

I know, it’s a short shopping list. And for some reason, my sentences are really short too in this post. Oops! Well, I prefer little smokies that have the cheese inside them. I think they're moister. But I’ve never had regular smokies to compare to cheesy smokies so I really don’t know what I’m talking about there. I also prefer Famous Daves BBQ sauce for the same reasons, because I haven’t really had any other BBQ sauce. My bad.

Go ahead and plug in your rice cooker and its going to turn on to the “warm” setting. Pour about half of the BBQ sauce into the bottom of the rice cooker and turn the settings to the “cook” setting. Then, dump carefully the 2 packages of defrosted lil’ smokies into the pot, the rest of the BBQ sauce, and place the lid on so they don’t splatter everywhere.

Let the lil’ smokies cook and simmer for about 7 to 10 minutes, or until you can’t resist yourself and you have to taste one and realize that they're done cooking. NOT saying that happened to me. But it’s likely to happen to someone! Serve and enjoy! Don’t forget toothpicks!

Homemade Hot Cocoa

For some crazy reason, it decided to snow yesteday. We got a lot of snow! At least, 4 inches yesterday and we're expected to get more today. Awesome. Way to go Nebraska.

Anyways, my roommate suggested that I made some yummy hot chocolate somehow because of this non-sense weather. I said I had some instant, microwave hot chocolate packets, but that wasn't good enough. So after dinner, we went to the dorm store and bough 2 king size Hershey milk chocolate bars, 2 containers of 2% milk (I wanted to get whole milk so it would be creamer and smoother, but they dont carry it anymore) I think the milk came out to about 4 cups of milk or so. And I already had some vanilla extract, and I had sugar packets in my room.

I fired up the good ol' rice cooker and poured one container of milk into it and let it warm up. After that was warm, I added the second milk and let it warm up too. I added 6 packets of sugar and about 2 tsp of vanilla extract. I stirred the mixture until the sugar was dissolved. I then crushed up the 2 bars of chocolate and added it to the mixture and stirred. After about 5 minutes of stirring, the chocolate was finally melted and was ready to serve! Yummy! I wish I just had some marsh mellows to go with this! Next time!

So for Homemade Hot Cocoa recipe, you need: 2 tsp of vanilla extract, 6 packets of sugar, 2 bars of Hershey's milk chocolate, and about 4 cups of milk.

Enjoy!

Super Bowl Salsa/Cheese Dip

For the Super Bowl this year, I wanted to make some kind of dip for some chips. So I got a jar of plain old wal-mart salsa and a slab of velveeta cheese at wal-mart. I took chunks of the velveeta cheese and put them in the pot of the rice cooker and turned it on to “cook.” After the cheese was finally melted, probably about ten or so minutes, I added the jar of the mild salsa to the cheese and slowly stirred it in. I didn’t bother putting the lid on the rice cooker. But you must stir carefully because the cheese and the salsa together filled the pot to almost the very top. And I just served right out of the rice cooker or some people wanted their own bowl to dip out of. Either way I was fine with. So this is what you will need for the Super Bowl Salsa Dip:

·         Rice Cooker

·         Rice cooker spoon

·         Jar of salsa

·         Slab of velveeta cheese

·         Bowls (optional)

·         Chips or other stuff to dip in the salsa/cheese dip

This recipe was a very simple and very tasty and almost anyone can do this. This is a nice recipe to have when guest come over and want some munchies, or you could take this to a party or a pot-luck dinner. It doesn’t really matter, this recipe works for almost all occasions.

Pork n' Beans

When people usually hear “rice cooker,” they immediately think of a thing that can cook rice. Not in this case. I have used my rice cooker to cook many many different things besides rice. For example, I have cooked canned pork beans in my rice cooker. This is very easy and this is what you do:

·         Get your rice cooker

·         Open can of beans (probably 3 cans of beans will fit in the rice cooker)

·         Dump can of beans in rice cooker

·         Turn rice cooker to the “cook” setting

·         Give it a quick stir

·        Wait and keep an eye on it until the beans begin to bubble and boil, or until they are at desired temperature.

·        Serve.

How simple is that? Now I understand that I could have just dumped the beans into a bowl and threw it in the microwave, but what fun is that? There could have been that chance that the beans would have exploded in some sense in the microwave and made a huge mess. And honestly, I don’t have time for those kinds of messes.

Plain Jasmine Rice

My first recipe I tried out wasn't from the manual or any cook book. I heard about this recipe from my cousin whose roommate had a rice cooker in his dorm. My cousin told me that his roommate would have pounds and pounds of jasmine rice in their dorm room and he would cook this rice all the time and eat it all day long. This was also part of the reason why I wanted a rice cooker. So I made my way to wal-mart and bought myself some Jasmine rice. I added about two cups (rice cooker cups) of Jasmine rice and and added about two cups of water to the pot and turned it to cook. It took about fifteen minutes for the rice cooker to flip to the "warm" switch and thats how I figured out it was done cooking.

The rice was warm, whole, and sort of chewy..the way jasmine rice is suppose to taste. Of course, I added some margerine to my rice like I do to all my rice. After tasting this, I knew the possibilities were endless.

My next experiment was to somehow flavor the rice. So I added two (rice cooker) cups of jasmine rice to the rice cooker and added one can of chicken broth and flipped the switch to cook. After the aroma of chicken stock simmering in my dorm room, I had my neighbors wondering what was going on, and appeared to be very intested in my cooking. After it was done cooking, we sat down and added some margerine and had ourselves a bit. The rice was a success. The chicken broth really made a tremendous difference, surprisingly. Beef broth is also very tasty too!  So this is all you need for Basic Jasmine Rice (or whatever rice you want to use)

• Rice cooker approved rice
• Chicken or Beef broth
• Margerine
• Obviously, a bowl or plate to put the rice on
• And, of course, a spoon or fork or spork to eat the rice. Chop sticks are optional. :)

The Rice Cooker

My very first time cooking with my rice cooker was a very interesting experience. I had never used a rice cooker before. It came equipped with the rice cooker, the pot that goes into the rice cooker, the steamer, the lid, the giant spoon, and the manual. First, I flipped through the manual expecting to find how to put the rice cooker together. But what I was surprised to find was that I found many recipes that Cuisinart provided! Some of these recipes, at first, appeared to be complex and confusing. But I was looking forward to the challenge later on when I became more familiar with the rice cooker and my own cooking ability.

Hello!

It all started when I opened my first Christmas gift of 2010. It was a Cuisinart 4 Cup Rice Cooker. I have read about rice cookers previously and asked for one for Christmas because I loved the taste and textures of real rice. To cook real rice, not instant rice, you need a rice cooker. I wanted a rice cooker that had the steamer attachment so I could steam veggies and other stuff, besides just cooking rice. I was excited to take my rice cooker back to my dorm room to begin cooking!