Embrace asynchronous cooking with a rice cooker. Maybe you can cook rice in a pot, maybe you can't, but you definitely can't do it while you're busy working or when you're out of the house. It cooks the rice and waits for when you're ready.
Our go-to "we didn't plan a meal tonight" is to pull an already-seasoned-in-the-sous-vide bag chicken breast out of the freezer, throw some rice in the rice cooker (I agree with the original point about rice cookers), and microwave some frozen vegetables.
It's a pretty well balanced (if somewhat unexciting) meal that takes ~10-15 minutes of active work, is extremely flexible on timing, and has pretty minimal cleanup.
It does take a few different levels of prep though:
Packaging the chicken breasts (and having the freezer space to store them), and then realizing you are going to make this meal at least 2 hours, preferably 3, beforehand to start the sous vide
Sweet potato in rice cooker pot
Filet of Tuna/Salmon/Chicken breast in steam basket
Also some veg like cauliflower/brocolli Kale/Spinach in steam basket
Add 1 cup water, press quick cook/steam.
Season stuff after.
Easy cleanup - nonstick pot.