Vegan Cook-a-Long

Lessons learned...

I distinctly remember making rice pudding for my Spanish class in high school and loving it, so I was really excited to make it again. But in my mind it's not rice pudding if it's not baked. (I thought this was a Spanish thing, but apparently it's a Pennsylvania Dutch thing.) In fact, it needed a lot of alterations. Where was the cinnamon? The raisins? The nutmeg? So I went hunting for other recipes. I compared a few and combined and winged.

Some of the recipes called for 1/2 cup rice to 4 cups milk, and some only called for 1/4 cup. So I split the difference and used 1/3 cup. I used vanilla soymilk, but also used the 1/2 cup sugar and the teaspoon of vanilla that my recipes called for. Definitely a mistake. It sure did smell good though.

In my insistence that rice pudding must be baked I managed to forget that we don't have an oven...

I cooked it for the 3 1/2 hours that it called for, but had to get to sleep before it was done. I left a note for Shawn to give it another half hour if it still looked runny, then to cover it and stick it in the fridge. He later told me he gave it another hour and gave up. In the morning it has solidified though. And don't be grossed out by the skin. It's supposed to have that from the spices.

My biggest mistake was not taking in to account the vanilla soymilk's sweetness. It pretty much ruined it. If I were going to make this recipe again I would use a plain rice milk and regular raisins, added towards the end of baking. But I don't think I will. I might try the actual posted recipe though, with coconut milk. And quartered. I just don't need this much rice pudding.

posted by Anonymous @ 5:52 PM