I first started making rice using a pan on the stove. It would always boil over and make a terrible mess. I hated it!  I finally bought a cheap rice cooker and that solved the mess problem but it created new problems. The rice always had a hard semi-burned brown crust on the bottom and the pan was hard to clean. I went through three of these cheap rice cookers over the years and knew that there had to be a better way but didn't want to spend a fortune to find it. The answer finally came when my last cheapie rice cooker died and I needed to find a replacement that would make more rice at a time.

Two cups of cooked rice is about the right amount for me for two servings. If I don't eat it all in one day then I just put the rice into a Zip-lock bag and it goes into the refrigerator. It keeps just fine for up to a week. The rice tends to clump together in the refrigerator but by "massaging" it in the bag it breaks apart quite nicely. If I need to keep cooked rice longer than one week I mark the date on the bag and put it into the freezer. I sometimes make 6 cups of rice just so that I can have leftover rice that I can microwave for a quick fix.

For about a year I have been helping prepare church dinners (we serve a meal to the homeless and needy every Friday night) and it was a struggle to make any rice based dish with just a small rice cooker. I looked on Amazon and found a rice cooker that looked like it would make both small amounts of rice for me as well as large batches when needed for the church dinners. It has very good reviews and definitely deserves them!  It is the Aroma Rice Cooker Model ARC-150SB and it makes from 2 to 20 cups of rice. Perfect for my needs and under $40. I bought one a year ago and have been using it ever since. I never get a hard brown crust on the bottom and the pan is really easy to clean up since it is Teflon coated. Even if you don't plan to make large batches of rice I would still recommend the Aroma Rice Cooker Model ARC-150SB to you because of the great job that it does in cooking both white rice and brown rice. It also has a delay timer that can be set for up to a 15 hour delay. Set it in the morning and have fresh rice to go with your evening meal. As an added bonus it can also be used as a steamer or as a slow cooker - what a versatile cooking appliance !

Buy the Aroma Rice Cooker Model ARC-150SB on Amazon
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How to use: I don't use the measuring cup that came with the rice cooker but rather just use a 16 oz. plastic drinking glass. I measure one glass of rice and put it into the pan. I then add the same amount of water plus another half glass of water. It really doesn't matter what you use to measure as long as you keep the ratio 1 part rice to 1 1/2 parts water (for white rice).  Some people say to use 1 part rice to 2 parts water but then the rice comes out too mushy for my liking. Brown rice needs to cook longer so you should use 1 part rice to 2 parts water. Plug in the rice cooker and push the the on - off button at the upper right side of the control panel. It takes a second or so for the rice cooker to "wake up". Then push either the "White Rice" or the "Brown Rice" button. The "Cooking" light will come on. Small batches of white rice seem to take about 35 minutes and brown rice takes about an hour. Larger amounts of rice will take longer to cook. When the sensor in the middle bottom of the rice cooker senses the temperature rise that indicates that the water has all been converted into steam the rice cooker goes into a "Keep Warm" mode and the rice cooker will beep to tell you that the rice is ready. I seldom use the "Keep Warm" feature as I generally unplug the rice cooker right away as soon as it is done cooking. You can then open it up and fluff the rice. Be sure to use a non-metal tool to do this as you don't want to scratch the non-stick coating. The rice cooker comes with a plastic paddle that works well.

I highly recommend this rice cooker to you ! ! !

Buy the Aroma Rice Cooker Model ARC-150SB on Amazon
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