Rice is Nice

I am completely hopeless with making rice! It's been proven again!

This time I was just making Minute Rice. Now, WHO messes up Minute Rice? Really. I want to know.

Evidently, ME.

It was a simple mistake, really. I was in a hurry because I was in the midst of making a yummy Greek dish with chickpeas (which Rob only agreed to eat after I assured him they were really the more manly garbanzo beans :). I decided it might taste good over rice. So, in order to get the rice done in time, I grabbed what I thought was Minute Rice. Now, most of my food is generic and this was rice in a large glass canning jar. Hey, it looked right to my "I need bifocals" eyes! :)

Rob, knowing me and my history with rice, calmly got out my new rice cooker, read the directions, and started some real rice.

Bless him.

Because I did NOT start cooking Minute Rice. I started cooking regular rice in the Minute Rice fashion. OOOPS! :) Let's just say it is still cooking. Rob's rice is fluffy and beautiful.

I am never going to hear the end of it! :)

Rice and Me: An Incompatible Combination

Rice. Me. Not a good combination. Sure, I can make Minute Rice (usually) or throw Uncle Ben's in the microwave, but making REAL rice out of a BAG has always just mystified me.

I've tried.

Repeatedly.

My long-suffering and very kind family has not made too much fun of me. They've ignored the smoke alarm going off or the somewhat...shall we call it chewy...rice. I think Matt, age 6, even thinks chewy rice is preferable. Poor child.

I've tried looking up different methods of making rice. The knuckle method looks sooooo easy. But not for me. I must have deformed knuckles.

So, in sharing my closet rice making failures with a friend, it was suggested that I invest in a rice cooker. And, what do you know, the grocery store had one and it was 70% off! Well! That seems like fate, does it not? I had the perfect excuse to buy it and give it to Rob to give back to me on my birthday this Saturday. (Which is my last birthday, btw. After this I'm starting over at 39...for several years. :)

So, now we shall see. If I still can't make rice with a real RICE COOKER, then I will hang up the towel and just have Rob make it in future. He laughs at me because he can make rice with NO problem. Fingers crossed! ;)

Step Away from the Rice

Today is Valentine's Day. Rob's been wanting General Tso's Chicken and since I am perfectly capable of buying a box of it at Sam's Club, I picked up a box today.

I forgot about the rice that would have to go with it. Rice and I are incompatible. Read here for proof! :)

But, I decided to just approach it head on. I got out the rice cooker. I located the rice. I even have a choice of clearly labeled rice types.

I decided to use the baggy of rice that was already open. So, I slide the zip lock at the top open and somehow spill rice all over the floor! A huge heaping mound of it! Fortunately, the collies find raw rice to be delicious.

So, once again, Rob took over the rice making for me. Can I just buy premade rice? :) I just don't get this at all!!! :) I think I may have some sort of rice phobia.