Cooking and portioning out delicious healthy food when you have a visual-impairment has its obstacles. One important tool you can add to your kitchen if you haven’t already is a simple rice cooker. By simply measuring out the amount of rice and water you put in, you know how much it will yield and the rice always comes out great. For preparing consistently palatable carbohydrates for your diet, it doesn’t get much easier than this.
First, for those of you that aren’t familiar, a rice cooker is simply a pot and lid that fits onto a cooking base. The simplest and easiest to use have just a toggle switch that you push down to start the cooking process. This switch then audibly pops up when the rice is ready. There are fancier versions out there with more settings to alter how much rice you are cooking and other variables but I have found those to be needlessly complicated with a visual-impairment.
“Ok cool, cook rice Evan, thanks.” Not so fast, there are some great little add-ins that will break up the monotony of plain old rice. You can rip up spinach leaves and add them and other leaves in before cooking. You can mix in seasonings such as taco flavoring. And my personal favorite, you can use juices. Depending on how strong you want it, you can add a splash up to half the cooking liquid of juice. Simply add the rest of the liquid needed with water. This add-in makes the rice far more flavorful with no added work. I have used orange, apple, and my personal favorite, mango.
Rice cookers don’t just have to cook rice either. I have used mine to cook quinoa either solo or mixed in with rice. This keeps me from having to get the water just right with a pot of quinoa and keeps me from burning it or drowning it. Quinoa, with the complete array of essential amino acids, is a fantastic healthy food and your rice cooker can keep the tiny seeds from causing havoc in your kitchen.
Give these tips a try to keep your meals healthy AND easier to prepare.
Share your dishes with us on Instagram @Caneandablefitness
Evan