Baked Ziti, and Too Much Cooking Wine

When we moved in a few weeks ago, Jon and I bought some basic kitchen ingredients to stock up - vinegar, soy sauce, the usual.  Somehow in our frenzy of moving in, buying kitchen stuff, and buying apartment necessities like sheets and trash bags, we convinced ourselves that a 5L glass jug of wine was a 'basic kitchen ingredient.'

The idea, of course, was that we would cook with the wine. Wine in Thailand is not very good and comparatively very expensive, so it's not like we could just buy a bottle to cook with and drink at the same time - no way its worth it to pour any wine in what you're cooking when you've splurged on a bottle to drink.

So the theory made sense, especially since we figured we would be cooking with wine all the time in the rice cooker ... pasta, stews, etc.  Three weeks later, we've only used it about three times, so maybe it wasn't the best investment.  We tried to drink some the first night - you get desperate for wine in Thailand and even stoop to drinking the cooking wine - but it was not worth it.

So, then, a question for the readers - any ideas of what, besides pasta and the rare pot roast - red wine is good in?

Nice, steaming pot of pasta

But whether or not you have wine, you can make the pasta I made in the rice cooker. It turned out a lot like baked ziti. No melty, crispy cheese on top - cheese is another rare/expensive commodity here - but we did have a little Parmesan to throw on the finished product.

Baked Ziti (in a rice cooker)
makes 3-4 servings

8 oz uncooked pasta (any shape, preferably thicker so it will hold up to the baking - we used ziti)
2 C liquid (we used 1C water and 1C wine, you could use any combination of water, wine, broth, etc)
1 small can tomato paste
6-8 plum tomatoes
2 Tbsp dried oregano
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 an onion, diced
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon (trust me)
sausage or ground meat (optional)
salt to taste
shredded Parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Throw everything in the rice cooker.

2. Turn the rice cooker on. Depending on the rice cooker, it will turn off when the pasta is done, or you might have to check it once in awhile. Our (very no-frills) rice cooker, which just has an on/off switch, timed it perfectly.
 3. Sprinkle cheese on top and serve.

Finished product

Back with a Vengeance ... and a Rice Cooker

Welcome to the Floating Coconut version 2.0 ... or maybe really it's just the original Floating Coconut getting back to its roots. Either way. Jon and I started this blog to chronicle the challenges of cooking abroad, without all your familiar ingredients and big, Western kitchens. We started this in the hopes that it would be useful to fellow expats in Thailand and all over Asia and the world (though some ingredients are region-specific) cooking in cramped kitchen.

We started out with just an electric induction burner - it came with the apartment - but already that put our kitchen ahead of most people we knew in town. Then we bought a blender, and an oven, and found out that you could find most ingredients you might want or need in town, and started buying them.  Soon, it became any old cooking blog, theme-less and, to be honest, not very interesting to write on.

But NOW. Now we have moved to a new city - much bigger, with way more food variety, but our kitchen has down-sized and we have a renewed determination to bring you recipes and food stories in the following categories - 1) cooking in a rice cooker; and 2) seasonal ingredients.  That's right, we have embarked on an epic journey and ditched our burner (ok, we moved and didn't get to bring it) for a rice cooker. We still have an oven, and a blender, but plan to focus here on recipes you can make with just a rice cooker.

Our new kitchen ... aka a desk with food on it and a rice cooker in the corner.

I've also started getting used to the whole seasonal-eating thing.  Since we buy almost all our produce from the markets, I've really enjoying seeing what produce is in season, and finding new ways to use it.  So we'll put in those recipes, too.  For instance, here it's strawberry season (but they're still a little expensive...) and, more importantly, its the beginning of MANGO SEASON! Which means the long-awaited mango with sticky rice, but also that I get to do tons of experimenting with mangos.

So, for the first recipe of Floating Coconut 2.0, I bring you - Mango Oatmeal in a Rice Cooker! 

It's super simple, and a great way to use fresh fruit, and to make a relatively hands-off healthy, filling breakfast.  One of the things I like best about rice cooker cooking is you just prep everything, throw it in, and press the button. Then you get to go about your normal routine (in my case, making coffee) and, in about 10 minutes, your breakfast is ready! Voila, hot coffee and delicious oatmeal.

Ingredients 
Servings: 2 
oil to grease the rice cooker
1/2 C rolled oats (you can use steel-cut oats but the proportions of water are different)
1 C water
1 medium yellow mango (or 1/2 C of any fruit), chopped into small cubes
1/2 Tbsp sugar (optional)
pinch cinnamon (optional)

1. Rub a little cooking oil on the bottom and sides of the rice cooker to prevent burning of the bottom layer.

2. Put all the ingredients in a rice cooker, and start the cooker. It may look a bit watery when the cycle is finished, but if you mix it all up it should be the right texture, since the oatmeal on the bottom will be drier.   

3. Add sugar and cinnamon to taste, if desired. I recommend the cinnamon, even though cinnamon an mango may sound strange. It adds a good cozy flavor. 

If you really want to go all-out, chop up another mango, a frozen banana (or fresh, but also add a few ice cubes), and a small pack of yogurt and blend for a delicious smoothie to complement the oatmeal... or, like I did, for a snack later.