For years, Trina has been pushing rice cookers at her site. Reader Shawna wrote to tell us she'd found the perfect rice cooker but, there was a catch, it was at Wal-Mart -- "and I know how you hate Wal-Mart."
We're not into glorifying Wal-Mart but we don't hate it. Over the years, we've noted that, in some areas, a Wal-Mart is all that they have. We've also noted that, in those areas, they tend to be open 24 hours a day.
The product in question is the Prepsolutions Microwave Rice Cooker Set.
Traditional rice cooker machines are plugged into the wall socket. They don't burn but they can stick which was Shawna's biggest problem. Either she added oil or butter and, for her, ended up with gummy rice or she didn't add anything and had to scrape the bottom of the machine.
The microwave means that isn't a problem -- for Shawna or for us in our test kitchen.
It's also small enough that you can pack it and carry it on the road. Trina noted that you can actually use the same cooker to steam some vegetables in to serve with the rice.
The kit or set is all plastic and it includes the cooker with lid, a measuring cup and a spoon.
We tried it with simple white rice and there was no problem. We tend to eat brown rice so we were more concerned how it would do with that but it also had no problem there. In addition, Trina suggested we try out some boxed rice sets like Rice a Roni and see how that works. We cooked the Rice a Roni Long Grain and Wild Rice with no problem and we also had no problem with the Rice Pilaf.
So we strongly recommend this product and stress, again, that for those on the road, this is perfect, it's easy to pack, takes up little space and you can pop it into your hotel room microwave with no problems.