It's basically a bowl of rice, but after you add some broccoli and some meat - hey - it's a bowl of rice with stuff in it. What I like most about this dish is that you cook it and eat it in one bowl, so there's virtually no clean up. If you rinse it out and put it back in the counter, who's going to know?

Here's your grocery list:

• Fresh broccoli, the stuff that looks like little bonsai trees on a stick.
• A can or Hormell meat: chicken, ham, or turkey, or maybe you prefer tuna. (Tuna reminds me of cat food and I've never been able to get near the stuff.)
• Chicken bouillon cubes, about a 1/4 inch square.
• Box of instant rice.

Supplies

• A big cereal bowl. Big enough to wear on your head, but not so big that you could give a cat a bath. That's just too big.
• A fork or chopsticks.

Put one cup of water into the bowl, drop in two bouillon cubes, and cook it in the microwave on high for two minutes.

While that's going, chop about ten little tree tops off the broccoli stalk. When I did this and measured, it filled about 1 1/2 cups, but I'm sure it would have been less if I had squished it all down. Chop the broccoli tops up into large chunks. (Whether or not you sing the Dana Carvey song as you do this is up to you. I do not.)

Next put 3/4 of a cup of rice into your measuring cup.

By now the microwave will have finished softening up the bouillon cubes. Take the bowl out, crunch up the cubes and stir them around. Then add the rice and the chopped broccoli into the bowl.

Now open the can and chop it up the meat. Add as little or as much as you like. I usually put in a half can of diced meat. The chicken is already in little chunks, so you don't have to cut it up very much.

Stir it all together in the bowl and put it back in the microwave for five minutes on high.

When it's done, it will still be soggy and wet. Don't worry. By the time you eat your way to the bottom, all the water will have been soaked up.

Serve with peanut butter sandwiches. For desert, just rinse out the bowl and fill it up with frosted flakes and milk.

Suggested beverage: beer.

Once you get the basic idea, you can try adding other vegetables to the mix, but I would avoid lima beans. Nobody likes lima beans.

Chow.