Thursday 26 March 2009

Cooking with Steph, Week Two.

How do you improve on a Roast? Is it possible? It was a cold Sunday, and there were some sad looking vegetables that needed some love lingering on the Kitchen counter and in the back of the fridge. someone had to think of them, and that someone was me. So this Sunday meal was an Italian/Moroccan bastard vege stew, with home baked focaccia and Rice Pudding for dessert.

I love a good stew. It is hearty, healthy and goes with my favourite carbs incredibly well, that being freshly baked bread or mashed potato. My mum used to make a casserole just about every Wednesday night in my Primary School years, when she worked the afternoon shift at the hospital. So NEVER call a stew a casserole, or I might not eat it. It has taken me years to get over that, but I am getting there slowly. I don't think she ever makes it any more either.

It is only this year that I have started to bake bread, partly because of my new friend the Breville Bread maker. It is the most basic breadmaker you can get, but it is a real winner. The only reason I got one is because I was using a breadmaker the first time ever, and poured water right through the poor machine. Cue going to Moore Wilsons to pick up a new one to grovel to my boyfriend with, thinking he would hate me forever if I broke this machine of carb greatness. Then miraculously he put his (broken) one in the hot water cupboard for storage, and it arose from the dead (excuse the yeast like pun). I got to keep the old one, and use it just about every week, and I'd like to use it more. I totally recommend them!

Rather than list exhaustively the vegetables that were saved from a rotting death, I'll continue to share with you the dessert recipe. Much more exciting! Rice Pudding is one of those things that oozes comfort. The gluggy soft rice and the custardy gloop it sits in is yum. I'm quite besotted with spices at the moment (a spicy chai latte for me please!) so I poured a crap load of cinnamon, nutmeg and five spice in to this recipe, but you can always take that out and pop in chocolate chips that melt through, or something like that. There are also some recipes around for rice pudding you literally bake in the oven, but they take AGES - about the same time as a roast. So I guess this is probably a modernised version...

Cuddly Rice Pudding
(adapted from ButterandSugar.org the photo is taken from there too - thank you!)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cup of Arborio rice - that's the stuff you use for risotto. Mmm. Risotto.
3 cups of water
4 cups of low fat milk
2/3 cup of sugar
2 tsp vanilla essence (or a whole bean if you are flash)
1 tsp cinnamon - or to taste
pinch of salt
2 eggs
1 cup raisins, dates or other dried fruit (optional)

Bring water to the boil and add the rice, stir occasionally until the rice is almost entirely cooked.

Add the milk, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and pinch of salt. Return to a simmer until most of the milk is soaked up/evaporated.

In a small dish, beat the egg and add a 1/4 cup hot milk to it a tablespoon at at time. Stir the egg mixture into the pudding and cook on a low simmer until it coats the back of a spoon (about two minutes).

Cover with plastic wrap to avoid the pudding forming a skin if you are leaving it a while, or serve warm.

Leftovers are good for breakfast, little sweet treats in tubs for work or anything you like really. It is way better than the canned stuff!

2 comments:

  1. Okay, so I have this thing where I'm so desperately in love with desserts and puddings that Rice Pudding is nicknamed by me "A Waste" because I feel that desserts and puddings should be packed with sugar and butter and cocoa and perhaps some cream cheese for variety. BUT I had my first ever Bread and Butter Pudding recently and LOVED it, so perhaps I could give Rice Pudding a go one day and stop this Dessert/ Pudding Snobbery.

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  2. Haha when I scrolled down quickly and saw the photo I was like WOW!! Steph takes GREAT photos! ...and was imagining this side-line career for you of cookbook photography or something...

    But NO. haha

    (I hate rice pudding bc it was the ONE thing my dad used to cook (other than macaroni (which I also hate)) and he would put sultanas in it (guess what: I hate them too)). (WHAT A HATER).

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