Now I've always known the household rice cooker to be a steadfast little appliance, but I never knew how versatile they could be until I wound up away at college with only an electric kettle and a rice cooker to my name.

Since moving out of the house, I've made not only rice (and rice + beans, and rice pudding, and coconut sweet rice, and saffron rice, and...) in my rice cooker, but I've melted cheese onto bread, made soup, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, steamed/boiled veggies, ramen, and even fried eggs in it. Next on my list to try is a recipe for a rice cooker cake!

It's impossible to ruin something in a rice cooker, because they turn off before they get to the point where anything could burn, they keep the food warm after cooking stops, they're compact, easy to clean, and you can make almost anything in them.

Seriously, I cannot sing the praises of these little guys enough! Anyone else tried anything fun in their rice cooker? (If you haven't, you should! And if you don't have one, they're not that expensive, and I highly recommend picking one up.)