Intro
I heard myself growling the boys last week: "Havn't you already had your glass of milk today?" and was appalled. Milk is nation building stuff for Kiwi's in more ways than one. Our entire economy for decades and decades has rested on dairy produce and for as many years, probably, our young bodies were built up with pints and pints of calcium rich milk; not that modern tasteless 'skinny' trim milk you buy today but real, full cream milk.
We were not a wealthy family growing up, in fact looking back I think we were quite poor but I don't recall being hungry. Dad worked three jobs while doing his apprenticeship and Mum was a stay-at-home Mum raising 4 children - and she wasn't even 21! Breakfast was Weetbix and milk - hot milk in winter. Winter evening meals always started with thick homemade vegetable soup made from the roast bone from an earlier meal and heavy with root vegetables, dried peas and alphabet noodles. It filled us up and made sure we got the nourishment growing bodies needed before the main course which was probably light on expensive meat. Every meal was finished with a milky pudding of some sort - rice pudding and bread and butter pudding being the favourites - which also ensured full tummies.
In my Mum's school days every kid got given a free quarter pint of milk and an apple every day at school but by the time she had kids herself the 'scheme' had changed and milk was heavily subsidised so as to be affordable for everyone: 4 cents a pint - cheap as chips even on our limited budget and we had 6 - 8 pints delivered to the gate every day. Thats 28 - 35 litres of milk a week and I yell at my kids for not making 4 litres last the week out ....
Recipe
- 1 cup short grain rice
- half cup sugar
- 2 pints whole (full fat) milk (1200 mls)
- 2 oz butter
- 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
- 1/4 cup sultanas
6 words for preparation, 2 of which would be ignored under filing conventions. "Moderate" really? You *know* that one of the biggest ijiots on the planet is following this, have you no mercy whatsoever? Clearly this is further scone taunting, since rice pudding is one of me favourites.
ReplyDeleteAre you using rice that's been precooked, or are you tossing it in the dish and praying for salvation? What variety are you using? No proper binding agent, eh? (I wonder if your type of rice is working overtime on that...)
I'd halve the receipt since some of us aren't cooking for the Army anymore, dear. It'd still yield me double what I'm meant to consume. ;)
Dear Friend,
ReplyDeleteOn further reflection perhaps I was a wee bit light on the instructions; 4 'proper' words is indeed brief. I toyed with the idea of reducing the instructions to: "Combine" or "fling together" because it really is that easy. Actually giving it a wee stir before it went in the oven wouldn't hurt, and perhaps another half way through cooking although that does disrupt the lovely brown skin which forms on top .....
I have opted to enhance the ingredient list.
Yours in kitchen slavery,
Jo.