Just Bento

HI Maki,

This post is wonderful for long stay vacationers like myself. I try to find a hotel that has some sort of mini kitchen, but then I am stuck with what shall I buy and so forth leading me to purchase not so healthy alternatives.

Your suggestions and ideas are always great.

Ciao, O

Why not buy at cookbook specifically written for microwave cooking? I see Amazon have quite a few of them.

You may find some ideas on Instructables - I found this one for making popcorn in a cup (for just one portion): http://www.instructables.com/id/Ultra-cheap-but-tasty-microwave-popcorn/

I spend a lot of time in hotels with no or tiny kitchen. The first thing I always go and buy are spices. You can cook a lot of thing in a electric kettle. One of my music teacher would cook is wieners in it. I’ve try a few vegs, and it wasn’t too bad (add spices in the water and make it boil with the veg, let it rest reboil, until cooked). Well, the only thing is that you really need to clean the kettle afterwards so that you won’t have a gingery coffee…The rice cooker really seems to be a great option as for the grill! I do own one of this grill at home and enjoy making vegetarian sandwiches that I’d heat in the grill. You can be quite a lot of spreads out of canned lens, beans and chickpeas with a fork a plate and a bit of patience. Okay, it won’t be smooth but the taste will be there. If you own a rice cooked things should be easier, as you could have rice, steamed vegetables and you can even cook dried lens and beans. A lot of sauces to accompany rice or instant noodles can be made out of nothing. Chili sin carne for example : a tin of red beans, a tin of smashed tomato, a bit of spices and in the microwave. For the unconditional of porridge, there exists instant porridge, but it is doable in a kettle but truly messy. Lots of cereals don’t need a lot of cooking : boulghour, couscous, quinoa. Maybe you should try to find these, as the only need some hot water poured in it (except quinoa but if you do the same as for the vegs in the kettle it’s okay). Maki, I think I’ll offer myself these rice steamer, it’ll make life easier!

Maki, if you would please delete my previous post, as it did not come out right… thank you.

Just a little more than a year ago, I was still living in a dorm, so I fully understand the concerns of dorm cooking. It’s definately difficult to eat healthy foods when you’re so restricted with appliances. For us, our dorm wouldn’t allow ANY appliances other than a blow dryer, but we sure managed to sneak a kettle and a rice cooker in. Microwave though, was obviously not an option for us at all… but if you’re a little creative, a rice cooker is really all you need. (After 3 years of no kitchen, crappy dorm food and only a kettle and a rice cooker to work with, you’ll find that rice cookers not only does wonders, but is almost all you need in a kitchen)

When investing in a rice cooker though, by the simpliest ones that comes with a removable steamer on the top. Do NOT buy fancy rice cookers unless you don’t intend to use it for anything other than cooking rice and porridges. Something like this will do you wonders. You can probably find much cheaper ones out there, but make sure to get the ones with the removable steamer.

Here are some of the things my friends and I use the rice cooker for:

1) Cooking rice (duhhh…) and porridges

2) Boiling anything and EVERYTHING

• you can boil your noodles, vegetable, meat and everything with it, just take the lid away after the water started to boil

• we often make soba noodles this way :D

3) Steaming anything and EVERYTHING

• with the removable steamer, all you have to do is put some water in the rice cooker, put the steamer on top, put the food in the steamer, put the lid on top, and after 10-20 mins, you will have steamed-anything-you-like

• if you want to eat healthy, steamed vegetables are great (although with a microwave in most dorms in the US, you can also buy steamable ziplock bags)

4) Defrosting frozen food items

• this does not really apply with the frozen boxed meals out there, but if you have access to frozen dim sum, frozen seafood and such, using the removable steamer, it’s definately easy to get them defrosted and ready to eat

5) Having a hot pot (or steam boat as some may call it) party

• my friends and I would go to the supermarket to get garlic, leeks, onions, other veggies and meat; use a little bit of oil to brown the garlic leeks and onions before pouring boiling water into the rice cooker (from the kettle), put some Korean hot sauce in there once it boils again, and then throw in the meat and veggies, and then eat from the rice cooker

6) Toasting bread

• this can be a little tricky but definately do-able: without putting water in the rice cooker, heat it up, and put the steamer on top, put the bread on the steamer and let it toast on both sides; it doesn’t come out as the best toast, but it’s not a bad option when you don’t have a toaster around and you’re dying for some toasted bread/bagel

7) Stir frying food - turn the cooker on, put some oil in, and start stir frying (make sure you open the window though, otherwise your smoke detector will go off)

8) Pan frying food - same thing as #7

There are so much more you can do with a rice cooker that are not listed here, but these are some ideas. One thing we haven’t ever tried was to deep fry food… I don’t think I would recommending trying though.

I disagree about buying the simplest rice cooker. Spend some more money and get a pressurized one, or you’re just wasting time and money. First, it cooks rice better and MUCH faster & keeps it warm and moist for days (just mix cooked rice with sweetened condensed milk and you have a delicious dessert or breakfast; mix with furikake for a simple meal; make a rice ball with a pickle center for your bento). Second, you can cook NO END OF STUFF in it— and keep it hot and ready-to-eat for days. I make porridge, stews, chili, beans, fondue and bake potatoes and sweet potatoes in it all the time. You can even make casseroles, cakes and puddings in it; I’ve done it all. Just Google “rice cooker recipes” to find out how. I have read that microwaving destroys the majority of vitamins in veg. Steaming them on top of your rice in the cooker retains the nutrition, and saves you washing a dish. Seems like if you have a pressurized rice cooker and a Foreman grill, you need nothing else— except a cutting board (with a groove around the edge to catch the juices), a good little chopping knife, a small set of tongs, and maybe a wire or plastic mesh basket that you can drain produce, tofu and dishes in. Also: Indian boil-in-bag dinners, like the Tasty Bite brand, are yummy, all-natural and nutritious. And Chinese groceries sell frozen stuffed buns and dumplings that are designed to be steamed in a rice cooker. You need never eat in the refectory (rat factory)! Thanks, everyone for the George Foreman tip— I think I will get one.

I just moved in and I can make bento easily in the dorm/co-op I am in. it’s a 6 bedroom apartment with a shared kitchen and living area. the kitchen has a communal fridge and freezer, sink and stove, with a fair amount of counter space. It’s alot easier to work on bentos in this kind of setting, I have a rice cooker in my room as well as a kettle. And small fridge so that room mates won’t eat my food >.< although I think none of them will eat the assortment of tofu and seaweed products that I eat and cook with.

Hey, as far as getting a microwave rice cooker I just cook my rice in the microwave. It works for all white rices, but it takes way longer for brown. But why invest when you already have something as good right? My Mom taught me 5 minutes on HIGH and 14 minutes on Medium (power 6). It even works when you double the recipe (1 part rice to 1.5 parts water)

Good luck everyone with coping in a dorm~

I recently bought a rice cooker for my dorm room to cook rice for dinners and bentos, but I find that when I cook and pack rice in my bento box to have for lunch of a morning, it’s never as soft and fluffy as it is when it is first cooked. Am I doing something wrong, or is rice only good when you first cook it?

from alton brown - you can make your own oatmeal in a coffee maker - use instant oatmeal in the pot, pour in the water. he also used individual packets of jam, honey, butter, etc to stir in. great for hotels. i would also say - get a rice cooker! even though everyone else has said it already. you can cook anything in it, pretty much. you can even make bread in a rice cooker, using a small round rack to elevate it (think - steam cooking). best of luck ;)

i cooked often in my dorm, mostly using my elec. kettle and rice cooker. i found that cooking pasta in the kettle itself made the kettle smell starchy, so i just boiled water in the kettle and poured it in the rice cooker, turned it on, and continued cooking the pasta in there. that way it didn’t take forever for the water to boil in the rice cooker.

we always had to wash stuff in our bathroom sink, but i was lucky enough to live in a suite of several rooms and had to share the bathroom with only 10 girls, so it stayed very clean. i also kept my dishwashing stuff in my bathroom cubby and would wash the sink out for good measure if i thought i should.

another thing i did was make fruit compote - cut up apples, pears, whatever and mix them with butter, brown sugar, some water, and maybe some cinnamon and stew it all in the rice cooker. this went really well over oatmeal, etc. and feels kind of special after all that dorm food.

last thing: NEVER try to “toast” bread in a microwave on a paper plate ;) a girl in my dorm got the whole building evacuated that way because the plate caught fire.

If I only had a kettle, I’d live off cous-cous and raw carrots. I suppose I could do more with a microwave, but I’d probably still end up lacking some vital nutrients.

I will be going to university next year and I allready have most of the few items of cooking equipment I will be taking, my family have put quite a bit of thought into it so it might help

1)A wok: Which, if your halls of residence provides access to a gass ring, will do everything that a frying pan and a saucepan would. Flat bottomed are best for Uni as I hear they don’t generaly have a special ring for round bottomed ones. 2)A bamboo steamer: Goes on top of the wok and allows you to steam things. Alot of recipies for steamed versions of baked items are out their as well as what you’d expect. 3)A plug in slow cooker: If you grew up with an aga, you’ll definitley need a slow cooker, it’s the next best thing too a bottom oven. So you can do rice and fruitcakes as well as casseroles in it.

I don’t know about other countries (or the universities I’ve not looked round) but in most of the halls I’ve seen in england the rooms have a kettle and their is access to a set of gass rings, a fridge and I’m told someone always brings a toaster. How many pepole share the kitchen (with the set of gass rings etc) varies from place to place. I can imagine that, especialy in places that are catered, some places might not provide acess to a gass ring, in which case it would be a good Idea to get a plug in steamer. That could provide a fairly ballanced diet.

Living in a dorm with 3 other food maniacs led to some fun adventures, but the most interesting was “baking” in the rice cooker. We made some wonderful lasagnas and enchiladas back then. It’s especially useful to cook the meats in the rice cooker first and then add boiled noodles/tortillas & sauce & just turn it on & let it go for a couple of times. We found simple recipes online and just adapted them to fit our tastes. We even had a parent stop by & confess that the lasagna was way better than oven cooked - maybe because it was impossible to burn. You can also find some simple recipes for making steamed buns from scratch & then just steaming those in the rice cooker. We found it was way cheap & with a little parchment paper - perfect. I would recommend that if your going to be cooking with friends, convince them to also get rice cookers. We had 2-3 at a time, just for the sake of convenience (2 were the really small size), and it let us cook faster and with more variety. But most of all have fun! Oh yeah, if you heat water in it, you can place a can (or smaller rice cooker pot) in the water and have a double boiler for chocolate fondue. That was a serious hit. stale cookies, odd brownies and fruit from the cafeteria became wonderful desserts.

The microwave is your friend! Get a book of microwave cooking from your local library and learn a few dependable skills from it, and experiment. The world is your lobster!