Waiting-for-Payday Recipes: Pinched From My Mother’s Recipe Box

Glad you stopped by. Tonight, I offer you a very messy recipe card, yellowed from age and use. I borrowed it from my mother. It falls into the Great Depression dessert category.

"Mom" in pink at age 60 ... yup, that IS her natural hair color.

I was fortunate to grow up with one of those super moms you read about. Owns her own chainsaw, split her own wood, can sew anything, bake anything and is a financial wizard. Spent her not home hours as a college professor in cooking, then business, and later moved on to a mega financial company. Now retired, she spends her time with her head in the Wall St. Journal, does water testing for a local conservancy group while sporting some very stylish wadders, stirs magnificent kitchen creations, cooks down my maple harvest and babysits my little one. Occasionally, she still hangs off the roof to clean their gutters or poke around in the chimney.

What follows is glued directly from an e-mail. My personal comments will be italicized.

“World’s Most Scrumptious Rice Pudding— serves approximately 12. (Tastes so good that it will disappear quickly.)

3/4 cup long grain rice
5 cups milk (evaporated milk–equal amt canned milk to water–is best for flavor) And better for your wallet.
1 cup sugar
5 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup raisins ( or currants or diced apple)
cinnamon to taste

“Place rice in cold water in saucepan to cover. Bring to boil and boil for one minute. Drain rice in colander.

“Heat milk in another saucepan. Add drained rice and raisins when milk is very hot. Bring to boil and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 35 minutes.

“Beat eggs until light. Stir in sugar, salt, and vanilla. When rice is done, stir some hot milk into the egg-sugar mixture (to slowly increase the temperature of the eggs so that they don’t cook). Then stir this warmed mixture into the hot milk and rice.

“Remove from heat and let set, stirring occasionally.

“Note: There might be times when the rice pudding doesn’t set thickly enough–it seems to be right on the edge. It turns out that sugar hydrolyzes the starch in the rice, which will contribute to “slurpyness.” If you’re experiencing setting problems, you could try reducing the sugar content. Of course, that’s what helps make to pudding taste so good; I’d still like it, even if I had to eat it with a straw! Mother, please!

“If I were to try cutting the size of this recipe, instead of cutting everything directly in half, I’d probably try: 1/2 c rice, 2 1/2 c milk, 1/2 c sugar, 3 eggs, 1/4 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1/4 cup raisins. After seeing those results, I’d go from there. (If still too soupy, I’d reduce the sugar further.”)

Much to her dismay, I still pick the raisins out. Hence, currants or apples at my house. She argues,” how will you get your iron without the raisins. They’re so delicious and loaded with iron…blah,blah,blah”

Oh, did I forget to mention, she was also a dietician before teaching?

( Neighbor Nancy crosses her arms, feeling rather pouty.)

Now does everyone see where my style comes from? What kind of lunatic uses “hydrolyzes” and “slurpiness” in the same sentence? It runs in the family.

(sigh)

Thanks for sharing, Ma. Love ya!

BTW, the others in the picture above are ( left to right:) my aunt, my “peanut” and my McGyver-like grandfather. Click here to read about his pantyhose hat.

Anyway, I think you’ll love the recipe.

Are you going to make it with or without the raisins?