Best $15 investment, as advised by Ebert and Ashlie

I had heard Roger Ebert penned a cookbook for rice cookers. Even more intriguing-he can't eat. After following him on twitter, I realized this must be an ingenious and worthwhile device for such an intelligent and humorous man to devote his talents to it. Ever since, I've been curious.

It's not like rice was hard to cook. But it could be a pain. Too much water, too much time spent standing over the stove. Yes, color me a typical lazy American.

I can't remember where- maybe here- but I vaguely remember hearing that a rice cooker was great for cooking for 1-2 people. Also, you could cook just about anything in it. Since I'm newly cooking for one, I thought I'd look into getting one.

My parents came in for a weekend and we went shopping. I cruised the kitchen appliance isle to be utterly surprised-rice cookers are as cheap as $13.99!  Mom & Dad got me mine: a 6 cup Rival rice cooker. I've relied on it for my lunches (and sometimes dinner) every day since.

Now mine isn't this cute little red color- it's just white, but I love it just the same. I've gone through two big bags of brown rice, making it both economical and very healthy. I also think it's perfect for those of us who don't want to spend a lot of time preparing our lunches each day.

Here's what I do:
-On Sunday, I put in anywhere from two to three cups of rice. In 30 minutes or less, this will double into cooked rice. You just put in the rice and corresponding water and walk away. You can tell the rice is ready when your house starts to smell of cooked rice. Yum!
-I scoop the rice out into sandwich sized reusable containers. Sometimes I do exactly one cup per container, sometimes I don't. Either way, it always makes enough to put in at least four containers.
-Let these cool, then refrigerate.
-Make sure to have lots of frozen vegetables on hand. In the morning when you're preparing for work, toss some frozen vegetables on top of a container of rice. Spritz with Bragg's Liquid Aminos for salt and added protein.

Ta-da! Lunch is ready for the day in less than 3 minutes (unless you include the 30 minutes that the rice cooker cooked).  Plus, the lunch you made is most likely under 300 calories. Nifty!

And like Ebert suggests, you can cook almost anything in your rice cooker. The most daring I've been so far is to try a box of garlic & pine nut long grain & wild rice. It cooked up much quicker than if cooked on the stove, and tasted just as good. Plus, I didn't have to add all that butter as suggested on the box (I actually used a tiny drizzle of olive oil instead), so that's another bit of healthy savings.

Let us know if you have a rice cooker and what all you've cooked in it. They're such great little tools to have to help you cook healthy & cheaply!

Ian's Earth Fare video

Just in case you haven't already seen it, here's Ian's video for the Earth Fare video contest. If you like the video, share it with your friends! Even the honorable mentions get fantastic prizes, and having an Earth Fare gift certificate in any amount would be so helpful with the economy as it is!

Ian's birthday burgers

Ian's birthday was in the first week of May. I got him some nice tickets to see Tony Bennett, but since that concert isn't until June 10th, I wanted to do something special.

I knew Earth Fare had some yummy sounding burgers in their meat case, but we'd never had a chance to try them. So for Ian's birthday dinner I went to Earth Fare with every intention on buying two black (Angus) and bleu (cheese)  burgers, and a sweet potato to make baked sweet potato fries (or chips, as Ian calls them).

However, my inner impulse shopper got the best of me. As the man at the meat counter helped me [and I must say he was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable], I eyed two other burger options I wanted to try. The first was a feta cheese, spinach, and turkey...boy did it look tempting! But out of the corner of my eye I spotted the gouda bison burgers. Then I asked myself, "Ok. We eat spinach all the time. When will we ever get the nerve to try bison?"

I ended up buying two black and bleus and two bison burgers. We ate the bison burgers for Ian's birthday dinner. I must say that the meat counter man was correct in that the bison burgers really need no condiments. They're good just as they are. We topped our burgers with some Rudi's whole wheat buns, and the meal was fantastic.

The following night Ian cooked the black & bleu burgers, and filmed it. He's going to enter the video in Earth Fare's "my decade, my health, my journey" contest. In the video he shows what an amazing meal you can make for less than you'd spend on a nasty, chemical-filled value meal. Let's goad him into posting it here! Leave a comment or tweet him @iconway and hopefully he'll post it!

More later.
xoxoxo

Inside and outside

Well, the two new things I alluded to in an earlier post are ready for discussion.

First is Charlie's Soap. Since we've been focusing on reducing the chemicals we put in our body, I wanted to reduce the chemicals that might be absorbed through our skin. Since laundry is my chore, I thought an easy way to do that would be to change our laundry detergent. I have very sensitive skin and can't handle most "normal" detergents like Tide. Earth Fare put out a coupon for Charlie's Soap, so I thought we'd give it a try. From the Charlie's Soap website:

Charlie’s Soap is really a blend of natural-based surfactants (detergents) derived from coconut oil, treated with a product of natural gas (real soaps are treated with caustic soda or pot ash), and salts in water (Laundry Liquid) or pure Green Mountain washing soda (Laundry Powder).

Charlie's Soap also uses no animal products and isn't tested on animals.

After washing several loads, I have to say I'm very impressed. Our clothes feel just as soft (if not softer) than before, and we're using WAY less chemicals!

My other news is fish oil. I've been hearing the benefits for a while. I thought that eating as well as we are, I'd see a noticeable difference in my fingernails, which are very ridgy and sometimes get vertical cracks. Fish oil also has benefits for my mood (which lord knows it needs all the help it can get), but Ian will have to attest to any improvements in that area. Ian can't state for sure, but he thinks to seem I'm less "down" than I used to be, so that's a good thing.

:-)