Homemade Rice Pudding

A few weeks ago when I was studying at Steph's, she asked if I liked rice pudding.  I said "yeah!" thinking about the many times I packed tapioca pudding in my lunch box in grade school.  I have no idea why my brain thought "tapioca" instead of "rice", but when she brought out the cute little cups from Costco I realized my mental mistake and graciously accepted her treat.  Oh man.  That stuff was sooo good!  I determined I would make some for myself that week.  And here we are, a few weeks later...and I finally made it!

Towards the beginning.  I thought it looked like a donut.

Homemade Rice Pudding

I did a lot of searching and most recipes used an egg (or 5 yolks - gross!); we're not vegan or anything, but I just didn't want to use an egg.  Then I remembered one of my favorite blogs and checked to see if she had any rice puddings.  Did she ever!  If you search for "rice pudding" the results show ten posts.  TEN!  I decided on this recipe and got cookin'.  Since I'm trying to study, I opted for using our rice cooker instead of following her instructions for the first half.  Once I started boiling the milk, the situation seemed really familiar.  As I added in the rice [no raisins; 1) we don't have any and 2) it wasn't what I was going for], I realized where this scenario had played out before.

When we lived in Ethiopia, I often tried new recipes since our food options were limited.  I don't know if I had found a recipe for rice pudding or if I was just winging it (thinking of an oatmeal-type dish using rice instead? who knows), but it went down pretty much the same way.

This recipe turned out excellent*!  I'm currently chowing down on some delicious rice pudding while reading about bacteria that can cause GI problems.  Yum.  This reminds me of two weekends ago when we were at my mother-in-law's; I was telling her about intestinal parasites and realized I didn't know where was the appropriate stopping point.  She was handling it pretty well, but I need to find that filter again - just because I'm completely desensitized doesn't mean the rest of my family is!

*I think if I make this again I will use 1/4 cup of sugar.  Or maybe just leave it out completely since there's vanilla.  The not-hot-out-of-the-pot spoonful I just had was way too sweet!