Cookbook:Brown Rice with Other Starches and Vegetables (Pandora's Feast)

| Vegan cuisine | Rice

Pandora's feast is a complete vegan meal that can be served several times a week due to the ease with which it can be modified. The meal is easy to prepare in a rice cooker.

Base

 * 1 cup uncooked brown rice
 * 2 cups water

Additions

 * 1 cup soaked and boiled black, pinto, kidney or other beans
 * 1 cup cubed potato
 * 1 cup cubed sweet potato
 * 1 cup cubed squash
 * 1 clove garlic, minced
 * 1 cup cubed beet
 * 1 cup chopped kale

Serving

 * Olive oil, hemp oil, flaxseed oil, or other nutritious oil
 * Nutritional yeast
 * Soy sauce
 * Black sesame seeds

Procedure

 * 1) Add the brown rice and water to a rice cooker.
 * 2) Drain, rinse, and add the beans to the rice cooker.
 * 3) If using, add the garlic to the cooker.
 * 4) If using, add the sweet potato, squash, beet, or potato.
 * 5) If using a fuzzy logic (i.e. programmable) cooker, set the cooker to the brown rice setting and turn it on. If using an on/off cooker, simply turn it on.
 * 6) In about 20–40 minutes, your cooker should finish cooking the rice. When the finished, open the lid, add the kale, close the lid, and wait about another minute or two.
 * 7) Open and serve. Top with oil, yeast, soy sauce and/or sesame seeds, to taste.

Notes, tips, and variations

 * If you have "Thai sweet black rice" or "Chinese forbidden black rice", replace about 10% of your brown rice with this, and your finished product will be a lovely purple and will have a different taste.
 * The beans must be either pre-soaked for at least 8 hours and boiled briskly for 20 minutes (preferred) or from a can. It is important to soak and pre-cook dried beans. Dried kidney beans will cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea unless they have been boiled briskly for at least 20 minutes to destroy the very indigestible phytohaemagglutinin that they contain (the slow cooker will not do and can even make things worse). They will then need another 60–90 minutes at a slow simmer to be tender. Tinned kidney beans are quite safe and do not need pre-cooking, as their preparation involves sufficient heat to destroy the toxin.)
 * The cubed vegetables should be 1cm x 1cm for optimal cooking.