Sometimes when I see a "convenience item" in the grocery that I have been making myself for years, I say a little - "uh huh" and smile great big. It's like I had some revoltionalry culinary secret that the manufacturers finally caught wind of and are now making thousands on. So the thousands are not mine, but the convenience and cost savings still is.

I've been cooking extra rice for years and freezing the extras for meals down the road. Cooking or steaming if you'd prefer the term, rice is easy. (I'm not a big rice cooker fan, frankly never saw the benefit of it, I simply haven't ever had difficulty cooking rice. But if you have and fret over perfect timing or burnt or mushy rice, rice cookers can be a solution.) But either way, it's just not that hard or time consuming to cook an extra cup or two or rice and freeze.

But if even that is more than you can handle, the manufaturers are cooking it for you now. Plain steamed (or cooked) rice is in the freezer section under several different brands. What's ironic is the cost of 4 cups cooked rice in the freezer is more than you'd pay for 10 pounds of plain dried rice at a warehouse store.

Anyway, the point is cook extra. Buy extra. But fix this easy vegetarian rice dish that will have you warmed up and filled up in less than 30 minutes.