A letter to Jessie upon her graduation from college

Well, you gotta start with the basics I guess.

For white rice, there are two ways: use the scoop that comes with the rice cooker, and for each "cup" of that fill up water to the corresponding line number on the side of the insert pot. Put the pot in and make sure the water catcher is on too and select "white rice". So easy! Comes out perfect every time! (Except I find that scoop isn't exactly one cup, so if you're using a measuring cup, add a little bit more water.)

Brown rice: It's the same, except double the water.

Fun fact: you can cook about any grain in the rice cooker.

Same as above, but replace some of the water with vegetable or other broth. (I like the "better than bullion" brand.) Then add some fun vegetables and other things:

• Spices: A strand or two of saffron is traditional but nearly anything works. Try a curry powder, for instance.
• Add nuts: slivered almonds, pecans, walnuts, cashews are all good.
• Dried fruit: raisins, currants, dates (be sure they're pitted!), or dried cranberries
• Vegetables: Snow peas, broccoli, carrots, corn, or experiment!

You will be shocked at how delicious and easy this is. Like the pilaf, this is more of a template:

• For each cup of dry oatmeal you add to the rice cooker, add fill up to about 2 to as much as 3 times that of the line on the side of the rice. If when cooking you notice it needs more water, you can always add it. Alternately replace some of the water with milk (dairy or nut milk) for a creamier oatmeal (though it should already be fairly creamy)
• Add fruit. Fresh apples are good (be sure to add cinnamon), and there are many bags of frozen prechopped fruits you can add if you're feeling lazy (peaches are extrordinary, and so are strawberries or bags of mixed berries). Dried fruits such as raisins are also good.
• Add sweetener now, if you like, or you can add it later. Up to you.
• Consider vanilla extract, and if using apples, cinnamon and nutmeg or allspice.

Turn it on the "white rice" functionality and let it cook. Stir once or twice while cooking. Your house will fill with the most wonderful aromas of cooked fruit. Top with your preferred toppings, such as cream, sugar, butter.

This can make a lot very easily. You can reheat this, though you may be surprised at how "congealed" it looks when taken from the refrigerator. The key is to add a bit of water right before sticking in the microwave and then stirring either at the end or in the middle. If you do that, this reheats beautifully.

You'll be surprised to find that this is the easiest way you've ever "boiled" eggs, even though you're steaming them. Simply add a layer of water at the bottom of the pot–it doesn't have to be more than a centimeter since we're just steaming with it–put the eggs in the steamer basket and over the water, and set the steamer functionality to 7 minutes for soft boiled eggs and 12 minutes for hard boiled eggs.

When it's done, use potholders to remove the steamer basket and also the pot. Pour out the water in the pot and add cold water, and (using protection to not burn your hands) put the eggs into the cold water. This will "shock" them and prevent them from cooking further (otherwise they will continue to cook themselves). Enjoy!

This one has ingredients and actual nutrition information calculations! As you can see it serves 6 and comes out to a mere 258 calories per bowl.

• First, chop the onion. Then pour the oil into the pot and set it to the saute function. Begin to brown the onions (be sure to not use a metal spatula, that will tear up the nonstick coating). Adding some salt at this stage will "sweat" the onions a bit. Do this for three to five minutes.
• When the onions are near browned, pull out the garlic cloves and smash them with the side of a knife to make them easier to remove from the skin. Then mince and add to the onions. (Alternately if you're feeling lazy, you can skip this step and use garlic powder. I frequently do, and there's no shame in it!)
• When the aromatics are properly browned, turn off the saute function. Add the red lentils and crushed tomatoes and bullion paste (or have it mixed already with the water, it doesn't matter much). Fill the water to the top or second to top fill line. (You can add another half a cup of red lentils if you want a thicker soup.) Stir and add salt to taste.
• Add spices. Just black pepper actually works pretty well, though garam masala (a kind of curry powder) works great. (You can actually flavor this a lot of different ways including with herbs but initially I recommend just one of those two.)
• Now turn it on the soup setting or the slow cook setting (honestly the brown rice setting works too) and walk away. It'll continue cooking on its own. You can stir it once or twice and check on it.

Voila, lentil soup! Serve with crusty bread if you can find it, or toast.

Variations: use brown lentils. Will also be delicious though will take much longer to cook. It will also have a much earthier flavor. You can also use split peas to make split pea soup and use the same technique as above.

This is completely vegan, though you will need an immersion blender (a standing blender works too but takes forever). It's also incredibly low in calories for something that tastes like a cheese soup.

This recipe requires a medium or light miso. Don't get a thick brown miso or it won't work. Alternately if you don't have miso you can use vegetable broth. It also requires "nutritional yeast", an inactive yeast used frequently in vegan cooking, which you can find in health food sections of grocery stores. This is what makes it taste cheesy.

The pureed cauliflower is the trick here; that's what gives it the normal "body" of broccoli and cheddar soup, for a fraction of the calories.

• Chop onion and brown. If the onions begin to stick I recommend adding a bit of the miso paste and just a bit of water and carmelize them in that. But ya know, normal onion browning technique can go here.
• Add all the other ingredients, but reserving about a fourth of the broccoli for later. The frozen vegetable bags may not be exactly the size you're using, but the key idea is to have a mostly even amount of both cauliflower and broccoli in there. You want about as much cauliflower and brocooli as fits to the top fill line for rice. (Using fresh broccoli and cauliflower is fine, but frozen saves a lot of time.) Add water to cover.
• Set to cook on soup or on slow cook. It'll take a while if it's frozen but now you can go do other things with your life.
• You're back, and the soup is "cooked"! Now it's time to puree the cauliflower and broccoli mixture with the immersion blender, if you have it. (Otherwise you'll have to puree in a standing blender just a couple cups at a time or it'll turn into a mess.) Puree the heck out of it.
• Add the reserved broccoli and let it cook for just a bit. You can select one of the cook settings but you're not cooking for another full cycle, just enough to heat up the broccoli. Now use the immersion blender to chop it up a bit but not completely; there should be chunks of broccoli remaining. (If you don't have an immersion blender you can microwave the broccoli, chop it, and then add to the soup.)

Horray, it's done! Serve with crusty bread or buttered toast.

(Don't eat this one cold by the way, it won't taste good… but it does reheat wonderfully!)

Just like mom used to make, sorta. It's pretty simple, so I'm just going to type it out:

• Brown some onions and "meat" in the bottom of the pot on the saute function. I like to use veggie grounds, which you can find in nearly any grocery store's frozen section.
• Add some jars of premade spaghetti sauce to the rice cooker pot. (Or you can skip this and do this with just cans of crushed tomatoes, it's just a bit more work.)
• Add some cans of crushed tomatoes.
• Add a ton of garlic. Like, so much of it. You can be lazy and use powdered garlic, but don't tell mom.
• Add oregano and basil. A lot of both, but especially of the oregano.
• Maybe add salt, and mayyyyybe add sugar (mom did). Personally I'm trying to reduce how much sugar I eat but I do find it makes this stuff addictively delicious.

Turn it on, well, nearly any of the cooking settings and let it cook until ready. I find "brown rice" works well. In the meanwhile you can make your noodles and clean up the kitchen, and soon enough it'll be done.

Be careful when opening that lid! The sauce will be hot and bubbly/spattery.

Same as above but instead of the first step either a cup of brown lentils or textured vegetable protein to the bottom of the pot and fill water to the second fill level number as you added cups of this stuff. Then add the rest of the ingredients and use the brown rice setting.

Good umami things to add which will dramatically boost the flavor of this… sometimes I add all three:

• Braggs liquid aminos or tamari
• Miso
• Nutritional yeast (seriously… this gives it the rich flavor of "meat drippings")

This is the laziest goddamned thing, especially if you do use a premade can of sloppy joe sauce (though you don't have to… you can make your own sauce with bbq sauce you have in the fridge and a can of crushed tomatoes, or even just use the crushed tomatoes and find your own combination of smoky and sweet additions (smoked paprika, hot sauce and peaches is a dreamy combination)). But if you use a can of Manwich I won't judge you for it (though I will judge the company for the use of the name "Manwich").

You can find bags of prechopped peppers and onions to be even lazier about this.

The process:

• Saute onions and peppers at the bottom of the pot in the oil. (Strictly speaking even this step is optional… you don't have to saute them, and you don't even need the onions and peppers if you don't feel like it.)
• Add lentils to pot, fill water to fill line for 3 cups. Add sauce and turn it on. (The umami suggestions from the Lentil / TVP bolognese recipe also apply here but are optional.)
• Turn the rice cooker on "brown rice" and clean up that mess you made! (Which was probably barely any mess at all because of how easy this recipe is.)

This makes a ton. You can also use TVP here and that's also great and practically indistinguishable from "normal" sloppy joes, but I really like brown lentils here.

Like meatloaf, but way better.

• Cook lentils and tvp in rice cooker with whatever spices you feel like, if any. Definitely salt and pepper.
• Shred or mince the carrot, or buy preshredded carrots if you're lazy.
• Pulse about half the oatmeal in a food processor.
• Lentils and TVP are done? Great… add that and all ingredients to a mixing bowl and mix it up. Add salt to taste.
• Grease a bread pan and add pixture. Top with ketchup or bbq sauce.
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes, add tinfoil and bake for another 15.

Actually I haven't tried making this one in the rice cooker, but it would probably work. This is Morgan's favorite, as Morgan loves cottage cheese so much. You need to serve this with rice, so either cook this on the stovetop while the rice cooks, or just cook both in two batches.

The peas / spinach / corn I recommend just getting from frozen bags of things. This if a strange sounding meal, just trust me. It comes together in a pinch, too.

• Add all ingredients except cottage cheese to a pot and warm it up. Get it bubbly and boiling.
• Add cottage cheese and heat for a few minutes until some of the cottage cheese dissolves but not all of it.
• Serve with rice. You're done! The spirit of Morgan shines over you.

Are you sick of lentils yet? I'm not! Lentils are "the pulse of the world" and feed more hungry people than any other food except for maybe rice. And combined together, they're a complete meal. I promise you though this meal doesn't sound like much, it's one of the tastiest things you will ever eat. I tossed in a sweet potato to make it more exciting but I promise you it doesn't need it.

• Add brown lentils and rice to the rice cooker along with salt and pepper and turn it on. That's the bulk of the meal right there.
• (OPTIONAL:) Chop up the sweet potato and add it to the steamer basket. Put this on top of the lentils and rice and let it steam from their cooking. You should remove this partway through or it'll overcook.
• Now chop up the onion and brown it in the oil with a generous amount of salt and pepper. Unlike most recipes this is not used as the base of the meal, but is the "topping". (Are you feeling truly lazy? You know those cans of Libby's fried onions that people put on green bean casserole? You can just use that instead. I won't tell anyone.)
• Put lentils and rice in bowls, top with the onion and 1/4 cup of yogurt. Salt as you like.

Okay, I promise I'm going to take a break on lentils for a bit!

This is easy and I'm feeling lazy, so here's a template:

• maybe saute onions or use onion powder
• maybe saute something meatlike or use tvp, you should know how to do that by now
• add a bunch of beans and canned tomatoes and maybe corn into the rice cooker
• add a bunch of chili powder, maybe hot sauce
• salt to taste
• turn it on
• walk away!

Fun variations:

• add chocolate powder (unsweetened) to make this a mole chili!
• add beer
• add… apples??! you bet!

• Add rice, add water to 4 fill line.
• Add all other ingredients
• Add a large amount of cinnamon and maybe a bit of nutmeg
• Turn on brown rice setting, even though this is white rice

Serve in cups or bowls with a dash of cinnamon on top!

Another lentil recipe? Well this is everyone's favorite recipe of mine, so…

• Fry up onion in oil
• Add red lentils and fill to level 4 in the rice cooker
• Add coconut milk, tomatoes, pumpkin, raisins, curry powder, and… pumpkin pie spice mix. Yes, I know, I'm sorry. And add more cinnamon, just in case. Add half the coconut milk
• Turn it on some kind of stew setting and walk away. Except come back to stir it a few times.
• Serve with rice, preferably basmati.