I Need Fast, No-Cook Lunch Ideas

CM: So, talk to me about that. How was it different?

K: It was a little bit deep.

JS: It's also broth.

CM: The broth.

JS: It's cooked in broth too, yeah.

K: Yeah, yeah. Like rich.

CM: Like, there's a dish, there's an entire dish with a sort of slate of elements inside of it.

K: Yeah, not heavy, but you know if you eat this, you're going to be full.

CM: Sure, sure.

K: And then so I went down there, opened it, and then I poured in the frozen peas and other half stick of butter. There was so much butter in the recipe.

JS: There's a lot of butter in it, yep. And then there's cheese too, on top of that.

K: Yeah, and then I added the cheese and then I was stirring it. But I think this step was a really valuable lesson for me, because I had never thought about adding things after the rice cooker was done cooking and you could add things to it and stir it in. That was amazing to me.

JS: You could do greens, like spinach works really well this, yeah.

K: Yeah. I was like, oh my gosh, I could totally do this with white rice or whatever in the future.

CM: Okay, so you still haven't eaten it yet, so.

K: Oh, I have.

CM: You're in the kitchen. No, no, no, but I mean-

K: Oh, yeah, yeah. We're back in the scenario.

CM: … we're taking you back to that moment. In the scenario, you're smelling that richer expression of rice. You're in the kitchen still. How did it taste?

K: After really getting into it and digging in, I was just like, this is so good and it only took me basically 15 minutes. And I was so full the entire day, pretty much.

JS: Wow. That's the butter.

CM: Because of all that butter.

JS: That's the butter.

K: I know.

CM: That's what I was thinking.

K: I had a nighttime class that day and I had leftovers from the recipe and I didn't eat until 9:00 PM, after lunch.

CM: Oh, fantastic.

K: And I wasn't hungry at all.

JS: Nice.

CM: Wow. So Karen, how are you feeling about the question of what you can accomplish in your dorm room?

K: I feel pretty good. I've been thinking about adding more ingredients just on top of the white rice I have. Yeah, or maybe even just experimenting with the, after it's done cooking and on the keep warm setting, I can stir extra things into the rice. I do think my next adventure is to figure out how to store fresh stuff better.

CM: Sure.

K: But that's a different conversation.

CM: Yeah. Well, I guess part of my challenge to you, Karen, would be, all that sort of the ease and intention that goes into making your at Atlanta stir fries, if you can bring some of that energy into that rice cooker environment. If you can be bothered to slice a couple carrots, throw some leafy greens in maybe at the end, incorporate some of the flavors, like some of the saucy elements that maybe you use to finish some of your stir fries. All of that could really work for you here. You know? So I wouldn't necessarily see them as sort of like a binary kind of scenario where there's at Atlanta stir fry you, and then there's Houston all business rice cooker you.