Steamed Greens and the Small Kitchen Appliance

Tonight was a simple meal of steamed greens, sauteed squash and brown rice.  What made this really easy is the rice and greens cooked together.  Originally it was supposed to be steamed Kale, but I had a small amount of spinach and a small amount of baby broccoli left and I just added it to the steam basket too.

I cooked my rice in my rice cooker, because if I actually try and cook rice on the stove, I always manage to ruin it.  I am just not that attentive of a cook to handle something like that and I hate boxed instant rice.  A brown rice has a nice nutty flavor that makes it something interesting to eat instead of just filler fluff that instant white rice is.

In the steam basket on top of the rice cooker I had all the green stuff I mentioned coarsely chopped as well as a quarter of an onion diced and a couple spoonfuls of minced garlic (I would have just used a couple whole cloves if I had them) and some sea salt.  On the right is a photo of what my steam basket of greens looked like before it steamed.

Once again I had to be away from the home to pick my daughter up from an activity, so I had the squash and onion sliced for the squash and asked my husband to saute it when he got in.  He used coconut oil for the saute.

I guess with me showing me using my rice cooker, I should probably confess something.  I really like kitchen appliances.  My rice cooker, my crock pots (yes I have 2) and my Vitamix are the coolest toys ever.  My husband is just as bad with his waffle iron and bread maker (although I make most of the bread in the oven and it never sees the bread maker).  I also have a Kitchaid mixer we got when we married nearly 14 years ago, that is still going strong and it has been put through the wringer.  Especially in those early days when I was still making breads that needed to be kneaded and we didn't have a bread maker.
Not all of our appliance purchases were a great idea.  I hate the George Foreman Grill with the multiple plates.  We were killing blenders about every 9-12 months until we finally broke down and got a Vitamix.  Okay to be fair, we inherited our first Vitamix and managed to kill it in a year's time, but it was a 30 year old Vitamix.  And sometimes the old fashioned cooking tools are the best.  Our favorite skillet is an iron skillet that belonged to my great grandmother.