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My $7 rice cooker died mid-batch and I fed my kids crunchy beans for dinner | Budget Friendly Meals - Opinions Matter

My $7 rice cooker died mid-batch and I fed my kids crunchy beans for dinner

So last Tuesday I was trying to stretch a bag of dried pinto beans into three dinners, which is my whole thing lately since groceries in our town have gotten nuts. I dumped the soaked beans in the rice cooker around 4pm, hit the switch, and walked away to deal with the toddler. Twenty minutes later I hear this sad little click and the thing just quits, no light, nothing, and the beans are still hard as gravel. I panicked because I had already promised the kids beans and rice and I had exactly $7 left in the grocery envelope until Friday. I ended up dumping everything into a pot on the stove, but I had no idea how long to cook them, so I just kept adding water and tasting them for like an hour and a half. The kids ate cereal for dinner while I stood there stirring, and my husband said the beans were quote fine end quote, but he was being nice. Now the rice cooker is dead and I am staring down replacing it, so do I just go back to the $7 one or is there a better cheap option that actually lasts more than a year?

1 comments

1 Comment

kaip1119d ago

Been there with the bean standoff, except my weapon of choice was an old crockpot that cooked everything to the same temp as lava. My tip for next time is just skip the rice cooker for beans, a plain pot on the stove does the job and dried pintos really want like 2 hours of a low simmer, not 20 minutes. As for the $7 cooker, mine lasted about 14 months before it did the same sad click, so you got a normal run out of it honestly. Cheap ones are basically disposables, but if you just need rice, the little Aroma ones at Walmart for around $15 hold up better and cook rice way faster. One thing I learned the hard way, never trust a rice cooker with anything but rice.