A while back I got an email from Tricia with Aroma Housewares Company with information on their Aroma Professional Rice Cooker & Food Steamer (the ARC-1000 model). She offered to send me one to try and review on my blog!

I do love kitchen gadgets (Oronzo might say I have an addition to them) and I was quite excited to open this beautiful, digital rice cooker.

As I took it out of it's box and started reading the instruction manual, and then recipe booklet, I knew that this wasn't going to be a situation where I'd use it once and offer up a review.  I wanted to use it several times before I posted anything on my blog.

Let me just say, that our family really loves this rice cooker!  Truly, we do.

This isn't just a simple rice cooker.  The Aroma Rice Cooker has an easy-to-use digital control panel with multiple features: White Rice, Brown Rice, Quick Rice, Smart Steam and 15-Hour Delay Timer Sensor Logic™ technology self-adjusts for consistent, restaurant-quality results.  You just put in the rice and water, close the top, push a button and it does all the rest!  

This rice cooker will prepare up to 20 cups of rice and keep it warm for up to 12 hours.  When it's just the four of us, we usually only prepare 4 cups of cooked rice but we had friends over one night and I used it to prepare a much larger batch.  

The "Quick Rice" function cuts my cooking time down approximately 10-15 minutes when I'm in a hurry.  Or, I can plan ahead and use the delay timer to set the time that the rice will finish cooking, up to 15 hours in advance.

Here's the best part, I can use the "Smart Steam" feature and the steam tray that's included to steam meat or veggies, separately or simultaneously while the rice is also steaming,  to create delicious all-in-one meals!  No more dragging out my two pot All Clad steamer to boil water on the stovetop for steaming.  I love that I can have everything cooking at once!

Believe it or not, you can use this cooker to prepare oatmeal, soups, stews, desserts, and much more!  The Aroma digital rice cooker includes recipe booklet with a lot of great recipes (the marinara chicken fettucini and the pepper steak burritos are two of our favorites).  Plus you can go to the Aroma website and find even more scrumptious recipes to choose from!

Labels: cooking, product review