Definitely Not Cooking Rice

 The price of rice keeps going up. This is from a discount supermarket I go to.

That price is without tax

With tax, it's 4780 yen, about 25 pounds. This time last year, 5 kg was about 2000 yen, about 10 pounds.

This is crazy! We use a lot of rice. Even though I've been cooking more pasta or potatoes, we still have rice-based meals four times a week.

But after yesterday, no more rice for a while! My rice cooker broke! I asked Christopher to make lunch as Mikey and I were out in the morning doing a volunteer class. I planned on curry and rice, which is easy enough to do.

Came back at 12 o'clock to the lovely smell of curry simmering on the stove. I saw that the rice cooker had finished its cycle, opened it up, and found that the rice hadn't cooked.  The rice was warm but not cooked at all. We had curry with bread. It was okay, but not the same!

In the evening, I decided to try and cook the rice again, but had the same results. Also, I noticed that the rice cooker wasn't steaming and didn't get that hot! I ended up cooking the rice on the stovetop. I made a doria with the curry and rice. Doria is a Japanese type of gratin. Usually the rice is topped wth some kind of meat and then a white sauce is put on top. I layer the rice and curry and pour a cheese sauce over the top. It's nice and a good way to use up leftover curry. Also, because the curry soaked into the rice, it covered up the disaster that the rice had become!

I checked how to cook rice on the stove top, it's not that difficult but the only pot that I have is rather small and I'm wondering if I can cook enough rice in it. Also, with a rice cooker, the leftover rice is kept warm to use later. I guess any leftover rice will have to go in the fridge and be warmed up in the microwave later.

I would love to buy a new rice cooker, but all the money we have is going into the house. For me, getting air conditioners in before the summer is more important. I would love to buy 4 air conditioners, but even just one for the main room would help a lot!

So I think we won't be eating rice anytime soon. I'm thinking of trying to make flat breads. I haven't tried that in ages.

Hannah made herself a pizza on Sunday. She even made the base. Looked really good!

Hannah's homemade pizza. 

She had it with hamburgers and salad.

I think I'll have to try that!

Can I make bread? I haven't done that for years, I guess a little experiment over the weekend is in order!