Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Kamin]

I lived on rice as a staple for about 3 years. If you supplement it right, it's the most cost-effective food you can buy. And I don't mean the 5 USD one pound bags of shit you get in a vanillaface supermarket, either--find an Asian market and buy a 20 pound bag for like 15 USD. It'll be higher quality, and it keeps for fucking ever if you keep it dry. Some pro tips:

You can buy a hot pot (plastic pot with a hot plate in it) for like 5 USD at a Walmart. They work better than a micro, even if they're slower.

Always wash your rice before cooking it, until the water isn't completely opaque anymore. It will take 3-4 rinses, depending on the quality of the rice you're using. Also, use cold water, as warm water washing can leech nutrition (albeit on a minor scale).

Sauces make rice good. Experiment. Snag a bunch of sauce packets from whatever restaurant you go to, even in passing. Taco Bell has some great sauces you can throw in a bag after buying a drink or something, and Asian restaurants usually have spicy mustard, sweet and sour, and soy sauce packets. Bag that shit up. The two most surprising sauces I found to use with rice are French dressing or gourmet mustard (the kind with some decent spice and horseradish).

Rice made life so affordable, and I saved mad amounts of money by just living off of that and peanut butter for protein. Rice is super filling and grows to TWICE its size when cooked, so a 20 pounds bag will turn into 40 pounds of food, no problem. I can't emphasize enough how versatile the stuff is, but if you're anything like me and hate spending money, you'll find it a true godsend.

[miauw62]

To the op:

Nothing. I love rice as-is. But only if you use sticky Thai rice. Jummy <3

[Tellemurius]

To the op:

Nothing. I love rice as-is. But only if you use sticky Thai rice. Jummy <3

sweet, jasmine, short grain, long grain ill eat it.

[Ancre]

I just put butter on it. I wish I had my own kitchen !

[gimlet]

Actually ... you can do a surprising amount of "cooking" without a kitchen.  I've been experimenting with tools and techniques to use while camping and travelling.  The most important thing is a way to boil water - either an electric kettle, drop in immersion heater, microwave, camp stove, jetboil, hot plate, campfire, whatever.  And a widemouth thermos/"food jar" - get a decent one like Nissan or Thermos, the cheap plastic ones might let the heat out too quickly to finish cooking. 

Now you can make rice, oatmeal, pasta, even poached eggs.  And it's WAY easier than cooking on a stovetop - boil the water, pour water and rice into food jar, go off and do somthing for an hour or so - BAM, cooked rice, no need to stand over the stove and watch things so they don't burn.    And, since it's in the thermos, you can throw it in a backpack and eat it later - save a ton of money on lunches.

Great combos are brown rice (the kind I get takes about an hour to cook) + lentils (take about 40 minutes, but it's OK to throw em all in at the same time, I'm lazy) + boullion cube + some dehydrated onions + various seasonings, pasta and peas or corn+cream cheese+tuna,  oatmeal + dehydrated fruit+maybe an egg, all the usual.  For "fast" food quinoa is the best, cooks in 15 minutes, I throw in canned black beans and maybe salsa or tomato.  Pasta cooks in about 10-15 minutes too, I get a high protein whole wheat pasta.  A way to heat sauces is nice but not vital - if you absolutely HAD too you could heat more water and heat things in plastic bags or in a smaller container inside the electric kettle - I've heated up those foil-pouched meals that way a few times.  Campers make scrambled eggs that way too.

The stuff is light enough to take along travelling - (the smallest combo is only a little bigger than the thermos alone and fits in a big pocket) and saves me from the annoyance of having to go out to restaurants for every. damn. meal.   Or being screwed because I'm someplace that stores and restaurants close early and my stomach is still in a different time zone.  And I can make my own GOOD coffee instead of taking a chance getting the warm dishwater too many places serve - there are even a few small grinders that work pretty well.

[Donuts]

Oh ketchuuuuuup! Ketchup ketchup ketchup ketchuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuup!!! Don't forget something Indian/Malaysian!

[moocowmoo]

Lots of good suggestions. Gimlet those are interesting combos. Healthy + lazy is always winner.

Well OP in case you still don't have enough ideas: Pickled vegetables, furukake, miso soup (any soup), sunny side up egg and shoyu (or just crack raw egg onto steaming hot rice), refried beans, etc. for every food in existence almost.

[thvaz]

As a brazilian, I eat white rice every day. If there isn't rice in the food, it isn't a meal. I love it.

[gimlet]

Couple more ideas: with a freezer available my go-to quick&easy rice&lentils mainstay was the big bags of frozen "stir fry vegetables" - these are cool 'cause they include stuff like onion, broccoli, baby corn and my favorite - water chestnuts (I like these so much sometimes I add canned too).   If you cook/steam them JUST right they are nice and crunchy or you can mix them in right at the start and they get mushy but the flavors mix in a little better.  This works better with a steamer or rice cooker than the thermos method - if you put them into the thermos too early they steal the heat from the rice cooking.  Getting the timing right is a little tricky but doable.  My tip is to set a timer for 5 minutes before the rice will be done throw them in then.  If it's the steamer it will be ready at the usual time, let it sit another 5 minutes or so if it's the thermos.

These plus:
Start out throwing in a couple cloves of garlic sliced not-too-thin, then when it's nearly done mix in one (or more) more minced cloves for some real punch.

Coconut milk with or without curry/cumin type spices is a nice change.

Asparagus is great when it's in season, I throw the shoots in at the beginning and try to time adding the tips so they're still crisp.

"egg drop soup rice" - corn + stir in an egg, don't mix it TOO well you want some strands.

Brown a bit of sausage and add it for flavor - a nice spicy sausage works well like hot italian, chorizo, kielbasa, andouille, etc.  Since you've already got a pan dirty browning them, add a little olive oil and a dab of butter, when it's hot some onion, optionally garlic, and then about a minute later the dry rice and lentils for about 3 minutes.  Keep mixing it around, you don't want it to brown TOO much but a little bit adds a nice flavor.  Then cook the rice normally.  I sometimes add a bit more garlic and onion near the end for a spicier flavor, I like the flavor they add when added at the beginning but I also love then raw and spicy

The usual herbs I use are rosemary and thyme, maybe some parsley.  A bay leaf about half the time. Red pepper flakes for a change, cumin, curry, chili powder (great combo with tomato) geez just about anything - get a good assortment and try em out to see what floats your boat.  I keep meaning to get the stuff to make Dal Makhani (indian lentils and kidney beans in tomato/coriander/chili/cumin/ginger sauce) and some of the other Indian sauces, I'm lazy and get it in the foil bags from Trader Joes and it makes a great combo with rice but I'd like to tweak the flavors a bit.

[Zorbeltuss]

Now I don't really like rice in general myself but these two things gets me food happy.

Rice with saffron, quite the expensive thing, but oooh so tasty.

Or this, fry meat (any meat pork, fish, kangaroo, chicken or any meat you consider edible.), put the meat into an oven safe pan, mix with corn or other cheap tasty vegetable, put rice on meat, mix milk or cream with the fat from the fried meat and pour uniformly over the rice, pour some cheese over it, stuff into oven at 150C or 300F until the cheese has a good color... Eat.

/Zorbeltuss

[quinnr]

It's also generally awesome if you put some bullion in the water while you cook the rice, turns out pretty tasty!

[Vorthon]

Make sauce from cream of chicken soup. Apply to rice. Enjoy delicious meal.

That's all I have to say at the moment.

[Hunger]

Put Chopped Brisket.

[Kedly]

Soy sauce... always soy sauce

[Neonivek]

Soy sauce... always soy sauce

Not all Soy Sauce are made equal.

I've had soy sauce I couldn't stand and some I couldn't eat rice without.