Weekend Cookbook Challenge #2 - Winter Comfort Food

My mother used to make a fabulous rice pudding, baked in the oven with a lovely crust on it. I would swear that she used leftover rice and I have searched in vain over the years to find a recipe that even comes close. No luck so far.

When I read the latest topic of the Weekend Cookbook Challenge I knew immediately what winter food I would make for my first attempt at any food blogging event. Although this recipe for rice pudding is made entirely on the stove top it comes closest to the flavour of the rice pudding of my youth.


The recipe comes from Cooking with Bonnie Stern, a cookbook that I have owned for many years but not used very frequently. Like most people I have my tried and true favourites and on a day-to-day basis rarely do I venture farther afield. All the food blogs out there are a great inspiration to make 2006 the year when I get more adventurous.

The secret to good rice pudding is apparently using short grain rice. Bonnie's recipe calls for 5 cups of milk plus 1 cup of water. She says, "It may sound like a lot of liquid for a little rice, but when it has cooked enough, it will be thick. Trust me." Well, I did trust her and I found that I had to cook the pudding for at least an extra half hour past the 1-1/2 hour cooking time in the recipe so that it no longer looked like rice soup. After it had sat for awhile it did thicken to the consistency I think of when I think of rice pudding. I omitted the raisins because we have one member of our family that really doesn't like them. I didn't miss them as I always remember the raisins in mom's rice pudding tasting a little sour anyways.

The best part of rice pudding? Eating it cold for breakfast the next morning.

Tagged: Weekend Cookbook Challenge