Rice Pudding

Yesterday, while the snow came down and the drifts came up, Decadent puttered about her kitchen making comfy things like, rice pudding and bread and praying that the power not go out lest I be tempted to head out to The Shop from Hell and do all this stuff the old-fashioned way like Mother Brown did amongst a plethora of cats and on a wood stove. So who is Mother Brown? She was my maternal grandmother. We only ever called her Mother Brown. She was plump and jolly and eccentric and always smelled slightly of steak sauce and had a huge wood burning stove in her ancient house.

This is Mother Brown's rice pudding recipe. I have altered her recipe somewhat because I don't raise goats and therefore have no ready access to their milk - especially during snowstorms. Mother Brown also used cream in everything, contributing no doubt to her lovely plumpness. I substitute evaporated milk for the cream. My mother too made this pudding and it always appeared on the snowiest of snowy days.

• 1 1/2 cups of cooked rice
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 4 T. flour
• 5 cups whole milk
  
• 1 - 370ml. can evaporated milk
  
• 5 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• pinch salt
• 1 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg
• 1 cup golden raisins

Place the cooked rice and raisins into a deep casserole dish. Set aside. I cooked this rice in the micro-wave and you can see a bit of the cooking residue on the casserole sides.
Pour the milks into a large measuring cup. Add the sifted flour, salt, sugar, nutmeg and vanilla and whisk this together.
In a separate container beat five eggs. Add and whisk this into the milk mixture.
Add the milk mixture to the rice and raisins in the casserole dish.
Mix together and put into preheated 325 F oven for 45 minutes. Stir every ten minutes throughout the bake time and remove when the pudding begins to thicken.

To cook in the microwave, cook on high for five minute intervals about 4x's. The pudding will begin to thicken and will need to be whisked at each five minute interval.