Playing With the Rice Cooker

I got a rice cooker off Freecycle this summer, and have only recently started to use it. It's adorable, like a baby crockpot with only one setting, but unfortunately I do not have any instructions for it, so cooking has been a bit hit or miss. The first set of instructions for cooking "perfect white rice" I found online told me to cook the dry rice in hot olive oil for a few minutes before dumping it into the rice cooker. This would, along with various other seasonings that I didn't actually want in my casserole or fried rice, ensure perfection in kernel form. 

I did that the first couple of times, and the rice turned out fine. It turned out very much like plain Minute Rice, in fact, but much cheaper. Today I decided to dispense with that extra step and extra pan. Why did I need perfect white rice for a casserole? All I needed was adequate fried rice! So I put in the water, turned on the cooker, then dumped in the rice, straight from the bag. Turns out, it was a bit of a mess. The cooker kept boiling over, and when it was done, the rice was mushy and a bit wet still. Huh. Well, it was (barely) adequate, so it was fine for the casserole. Fried rice comes up on the menu in a few days though, and for that I will go back to obeying the nonsensical instructions that actually  work. I can be taught!