indoor adventures: one pot wonders

wonder | wander | women have talked a lot about the electric lunchbox and how it changed our daily cooking and eating. Sadly our first kitchen friend stopped working and we had to get a new one!

It even comes in its own cute bag!

We tested it by making steamed egg with miso, sausage and green onion; it passed the test deliciously.

Since then we've used it as faithfully as the old one, making ramen, rice dishes and whatever we get a craving for.

Beef slices with shiitake

Mushrooms are almost as much a staple as rice: whether making them with beef, chicken, seafood or by themselves, we always make sure we have mushrooms of some kind to throw in the pot.

Wild mushroom stroganoff

Having a steamer like this means re-adjusting a lot of cooking times and recipes. Now that we've figured out the timing for cooking pasta in the pot, we cook lots of that too! 

Orzo with butter and mushrooms

Cheesy noodles are our special favourites - they don't blister like in the oven, but they're melty and take on a lot of flavour.

Spaghetti with tuna, cheddar and spring onions

But nothing will ever beat our beloved rice! A delicious bowl of bulgogi beef with (what else!) mushrooms and spring onions makes the perfect comfort food. It reminds us of eating tenderloin tips with  friends in the local restaurant across from our school.

We've also found a great trick for salmon...while steaming the fillet, pop the skin separately in the oven for a few minutes so you get melting salmon with crispy skin to top off your rice!

Cod roe is also a surprise favourite: it can be steamed in a little cup along with rice and seasoned with shiso and seaweed.

Best of all, prime the shallow steamer pan with oil and while making rice, you can also steam up a soufflé omelette!

Steamed omelette with miso, veggies and sesame seeds

The new steamer has a 5-year warranty, so we look forward to many more meals and yummy experiments  to come!