Favorite Appliance EVER

New York has fallen under an arctic chill, far more extreme than is normal for early December.  And I have fallen under a mountain of meetings and work from which I have only barely emerged.  A weekend of fabulous parties, the best of which was the beautiful engagement party that Zenia threw for me and Paul, left me a tad depleted.  And a semi-late night out at the Bowery Ballroom last night only compounded the drain.

But luckily, tonight I can laze around watching TV and reacquainting myself with the miracle appliance that is my rice maker.  Paul left for England today so I'm free to have the kind of odd, ad hoc dinners that one has in complete single-girl solitude.

Since Chief didn't eat any of the items on their rider at the Bowery Ballroom, and Paul is loathe to let anything go to waste, I have two pounds of cold cuts and one pound of swiss cheese sitting in my refrigerator.  And a rice cooker just itching to make use of them.

After cooking the rice and throwing in a few vegetables and black vinegar (I was out of soy sauce so it was the next best thing), it was time for the turkey.

And then time for the cheese

And then it was time for dinner eaten out of a bowl on the couch while catching up on Dexter with a big glass of red wine at hand.

I first got the idea for this melted cheese with rice and veggies and soy sauce from Kenny Shopsin,  and I amended his recipe to make use of the rice cooker rather than the microwave.  How fitting that the ultimate "I don't care what anyone thinks of me eating this low down dirty dinner" recipe comes from the ultimate "I don't care what anyone thinks about me at all" guy.

I'm already thinking of random delicious things to throw in it tomorrow night...