Cheap Vegan Eats: Rice cooker to the rescue!

So I haven't gone out for groceries in a while, with my excessive zombie apocalypse food hording ways I decided it was time to eat through some of the backlog. I'm looking at you storage room, pantry, rubbermaid bins and freezer. Especially the freezer, because I miss smoothies with frozen fruit or freezing meals for later.

So this coupled with my desire to upgrade (read: rebuild) my pc has led to some major cost cutting in not eating out or buying groceries. Which means, produce has been a rarity, I do shop with the sale flyers and if enough things are on sale I will venture out, but I digress.

Tonight is another looking into Cheap Vegan Eats!
This may be one of my all time favourite topics, although not always the tastiest. I love being frugal, I love reading about other people's frugality. I love secrets and tips and saving money. I feel no shame.

So tonight diner is brought to you by every poor students best friend: the rice cooker.

 I lucked out and had some of YRR's Bechemel Sauce  leftover from last night, this is a super easy and fantastically tasty recipe which I've blogged about a few dozen times.



It's a fantastic sauce, creamy, rich, smooth and I always, always, always have the ingredients on hand. And when I'm super hurting (no margarine or soymilk) I can still make my poverty sauce version.

• Leftover Bechemel Sauce YRR
• Brown Basmati Rice
• Water
• Lemon Juice
• Frozen mixed veggies
• Frozen Peas
• Cooked chickpeas

Basically I added rice and water to the rice cooker, dropped the frozen mixed veggies into the rice cooker steamer basket with a squirt of lemon and walked away. Once the rice was done or near done I added some frozen peas and re-heated my sauce. Tossed it  into a bowl, topped with sauce, salt, pepper and nooch with a sprinkle of chickpeas (but you can really use any bean, seitan, tofu, tempeh or bacos you have around).

The bowl is a pretty great low budget, low time, minimal effort way to eat something healthy. You can sub in any grain, sauce, spice, vegetable, protein mixture you have on hand. Or get fancier by turning on your stove and making a noodle bowl. It's a great way to use up your leftovers.

And another great excuse to make a large batch of baked tofu, tempeh, beans or seitan for the week.