We’re a bit short on cooking utensils while staying at the hotel waiting to move into our new apartment. I figured I should try out some new things with our rice cooker. Sam noticed lots of local collard greens at the Norwich farmers’ market, and suggested we eat beans and greens one night for dinner.

Beans and greens is good old-fashioned comfort food. Typically we cook it all day in the crock pot, but the rice cooker can act like a glorified crock pot, boiling the beans, then holding warm until its time to eat.

I soaked 1 cup of black navy beans from the COOP overnight in water. In the morning before Pidi and I went on a long hike, I assembled the following in the rice cooker:

• Soaked beans, drained and rinsed
• 4 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/4 large onion, chopped
• 1 large bunch (8 stalks?) of tuscan kale, stemmed and chopped
• salt
• 3 cups of water

I put the rice cooker on the setting for cooking brown rice and hit the start button. When we got back from our hike in Boston Lot Bluffs (just across the street!), we had made the whole hotel smell great. I gave the pot a stir and left it to stay warm.

When it came time for dinner, we served the beans and greens with elbow macaroni. It was a little plain and we added sriracha for some more flavor. I would have loved some ham or bacon grease to give it a little more flavor. Or, I could have cooked with stock or beer.