Thursday, May 14, 2009

Rice Pudding Mess

I love my mom's rice pudding, but (if I ate it regularly it would be a big butt) it contains a TON of butter.  You can actually see golden pools of it in every serving. Once you get past the fact that every bite is clogging your arteries, it is amazing.  Needless to say, I rarely make it, and when I do, I seriously cut back on the butter.

I was flipping through Elie Krieger's The Food You Crave and saw a butter-free recipe for rice pudding. Of course this caught my eye and immediately went on the menu. There were a couple of red flags that really should have stopped me from making this.  Obviously the first was no butter. The second, which Brett did point out while giving me the, "Yuck! Are you kidding?" look was vanilla soy milk.  We have tried soy milk before and found it undrinkable. Who wants to drink beans? While the vanilla is far superior to the regular, it still tastes like vanilla flavored beans.
But instead of saying, "You're right, honey." I proceeded to read from the cookbook, "The vanilla soy milk imparts a richer flavor and texture than regular milk."  I was sold.  Brett was not.

The recipe was incredibly simple. I threw everything together, put a lid on it, put it in the oven, and set the timer.  Toward the end of our wait, we heard a noise coming from the kitchen.  That is never a good thing in our household.  Sure enough the frothy milk mixture was bubbling over the pan, escaping from under the lid, and splashing down onto the bottom of our oven.  All I had to do was remove the lid and all the foam went down, but the damage was already done. 

We let it continue cooking until the timer beeped and then I gave it a good stir and let it cool to thicken up a little bit. Nutmeg and cinnamon got sprinkled throughout and it did smell pretty good.  We started eating.  It was okay.  The nutmeg was its saving grace... for about four bites. I put down my bowl and said, "I don't think I want to eat any more." A couple of minutes later, Brett put his down too.  As much as I hate throwing food away, this one went in the trash.  I think the picture may help you understand.


I better go clean the oven now.

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