Pandora's Feast

Add the brown rice and water to the rice cooker. If you have "Thai sweet black rice" or "Chinese forbidden black rice", replace about 10% of your brown rice with this and your finished product will be a lovely purple and will have a different taste.

The beans should either be pre-soaked for at least 8 hours and boiled briskly for 20 minutes (preferred) or from a can. Drain, rinse, and add these to the rice cooker. (It is important to soak and pre-cook dried beans. Dried kidney beans will cause nausea, vomiting and diarrhea unless they have been boiled briskly (the slow cooker will not do - it can even make things worse) for at least twenty minutes to destroy the very indigestible phytohaemagglutinin that they contain - they will then need another 60-90 minutes slow simmer to be tender. Tinned kidney beans are quite safe and do not need pre-cooking as their preparation involves sufficient heat to destroy the toxin.)

If using, add the garlic to the cooker.

If using, add the sweet potato, squash, beet or potato, chop into cubes 1cm x 1cm for optimal cooking.

On a fuzzy logic cooker, set the cooker to the brown rice setting and turn it on. For an on/off cooker, turn it on.

If using, chop the kale.

In about 20–40 minutes, your cooker will complete cooking the rice. When the cooker is finished, open the lid, add the kale, and wait about another minute or two.

Open and serve. Top with oil, yeast, soy sauce and/or sesame seeds, to taste.