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Friday, June 18, 2010

College Dorm Cooking: Advice Please

I have really and truly appreciated the advice that has been coming my way on my project. And, I promise, I will respond to all comments one of these days. I have been cooking away with the rice cooker: Thai pumpkin soup, mushroom and bread soup, Moroccan vegetable stew. And more. I am so glad I didn't spring for the expensive faux-pro stove 2 years ago (I came THIS close to a Wolf or Bluestar), because I think 90% of my cooking will be in the rice cooker henceforth.

Anyway, here is the latest evolution of my project. I would like to get something up before school starts. That desire is complicated by the fact that I will be on the road for much of July, and big sections of the road do not have easy access to the internet.

NEW CONCEPT:
20-25 ingredients
2 weeks of dinners (and not stuff like I've listed above; this will be more basic). Equipment will be rice cooker, knife, and stick blender as before.
Recipes will not require chopping or any complex prep.
Recipes will not require shopping, once initial pantry set up complete.
Recipes will not require a stove--just rice cooker and micro.
Minimal clean-up, owing to above factores.

So: no shopping, no equipment, no knowledge, no cleaning...

If I do this as an ebook--which sounds fairly easy to set up, especially since I'm going to have someone else in my family do it--I can put it on Amazon! Do you think anyone would pay, say, $2.00 for such a useful tome?

4 comments:

Duchesse said...

It occurs to me, Frugal, that your rice-cooker project would also be useful for the elderly, who do not want the chore of cleaning a stove, and some of them can forget which burner they turned on. Maybe a rice cooker could be equipped with a timed turn-of like some irons. Would this not be a wonderful cooking device for senior's apartments?

Even without the auto-off, a rice cooker would be also useful and much simpler for cooking for one. And you, Frugal, could be the George Foreman of rice cookery.

Funny about Money said...

Two bucks? Absolutely!

Look in to marketing it thru Amazon as a Kindle book. Have no idea what the terms are, but it would be worth investigating.

And this thing is something you should be able to market through college bookstores. I imagine you could get $5 for it--remember, you'll have to give the bookstore a third to a half, so you need to price your product accordingly.

I used to sell CD books through my university's bookstore. The manager was very helpful. Most of these folks are happy to speak with you and can advise you liberally about dealing with bookstores.

The dorm cooking idea would be great for frugal travelers -- a rice cooker is lightweight and doesn't require a propane tank. (I think I mentioned that SDXB always carries a camp stove and full complement and pots, pans, and camp tableware everywhere he travels, so that he can cook all his meals in his motel room). And it also is a terrific idea for seniors who live in life-care communities, where the "independent" apartments often have only a tiny efficiency kitchen.

Why not a cookbook on rice-cooker cooking?

Frugal Scholar said...

@Duchesse-Oh, thank you. I thought about the elderly too. Maybe your sons could test some recipes for me!

@Funny--There are several rice cooker books coming out in the fall. My tome is going to be very short. 20 ingredients; 14 recipes. Easy. A big book would take me a lot of time, require lots of filler, etc. And the main audience would be people who don't want to slog through lots of choices.

Crystal Stemberger said...

I know nothing about any of this, but if your recipes are tasty, easy, and require only a rice-cooker I'd be willing to pay $4-$5 for it even if there are only 20 - the price would depend on how many of the recipes I'd like since I'm not really a try-new-things type of eater...if it just had 3 or 4 recipes that were just awesome for me, $4-$5 would seem like a bargain.

If you come up with categorical tomes (like 20 Asian, 20 Down-Home Favorites, 20 Mexican...), you could sell each one for $4-$5. Put me down for the Down-Home Favorites one, lol. :-)