Rice.

Rice cookers are generally easier to clean than the pot of water, especially if you are willing to spend more than $10 on it. The rice cooker is also something you can leave and forget about, but if you do that with rice on the stove, you are in for trouble! Mine was $3 at a thrift store and is one of my favorite kitchen items.

If you are willing to spend a hundred dollars or more on a rice cooker (crazy I know) you can get one of the ultra models that you can preprogram. Everyday at a set time, it will automatically make the rice for you. That's Japanese ingenuity for you.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

It depends on the cooker I think... The one my mom uses came with very direct directions that said don't put anything in it but water or the cooker would absorb the flavor and transfer it to the next dish. Another one a friend bought encourages things like coconut milk and herbs added to the dish.

I just found some encouraging links that indicate you could cook jambalaya in a rice cooker pretty easily:

http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1742,...251195,00.html
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,1942,...247201,00.html
http://damned-colonial.livejournal.com/285932.html

There's nowhere I can't reach.