This past weekend I treated myself to a rice cooker. For the longest time I thought this was an appliance that was a waste of money, but then we went to a friend’s house for New Year’s Eve, and I experienced a rice cooker first hand for the first time. And I was hooked.

When we gutted our kitchen and suddenly I was out a stove, I continued to make my rice in the microwave like always. But here’s what I found out: when you’re cooking without a kitchen, you’re using the microwave to cook many other things as well. The couple of times we’ve had rice with vegetables and something else, I would have to rotate when I cooked the rice, plus the rest of the meal in the microwave, and something always ended up cold.

So this past weekend, when I saw a Black & Decker rice cooker for only $25, I splurged.

Here’s the best part: I discovered that this rice cooker can do way more than just cook rice. It can also:

• steam vegetables
• cook seafood
• make pasta–as in heat it up in the absence of a pot on a stove, not actually “make” pasta
• act as a stockpot for making soup
• cook and steam dumplings

For as long as we are without a kitchen–and even after our new kitchen is installed–I’m feeling confident that this rice cooker will be a staple in my meal plans. And now I can’t wait to use it the next time I make stir-fry chicken in the slow cooker and want to serve it with rice.