rice pudding...

i love rice pudding. my mother used to make this amazing rice dessert with cooked white rice, cherries, crushed pineapple and sweetened whipped cream. my grandmother (her mother) didn't cook much but she made a great 'hard sauce' that she served over cake, she made floats with vanilla ice cream and ginger ale, she made egg custard and she made rice pudding. her rice pudding was baked, had lots of raisins and a liberal sprinkling of cinnamon. mom's rice pudding was festive...nana's rice pudding was comfort food.

white rice and i parted ways in the late 60's, when i discovered brown rice. it was healthier. nuttier. and took forever to cook. i only ate white rice at asian or indian restaurants. and at family functions, where  i consumed bowlfuls of mom's rice pudding, although the sweetened whipped cream gave way to whipped topping in a box and, eventually, fat-free kool whip. boil-in-the-bag rice  (or minute rice) replaced the regular kind. and, after my grandmother died, her baked, cinnanom-y rice pudding vanished like the dinosaurs. the pre-packaged tubs at the market tasted horrible, as did the canned version. once, in the 80's, as i passed through memphis, i had a dish of rice pudding at a truckstop that tasted so much like nana's that it stunned me... i never did find that truckstop again or found a pudding like hers anywhere else.

i am in vermont, it is cold and i have decided to make mom (who is almost 90) some rice pudding. i don't want the cherries/pineapple one so i search online for something similiar to my grandmother's recipe. no luck. but i am intriqued by a recipe i stumble across, a recipe that seems to date back to the 1930's. before fat-free milk and gluten-free brown rice and heart-healthy margarine. i make this rice pudding and it is phenomenally good. first, nana's baked rice pudding, followed by my mother's cherry-pineapple rice pudding...and now it's my turn. i have a rice pudding recipe, too.

in a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups of water to boil. add 3/4 cup of long grain white rice--not instant or parboiled rice. simmer, covered, for 20 minutes.

in another pan, measure 1 1/2 cups of the cooked rice and add 1 1/2 cups of milk (i used 2%), 2/3 cup of golden raisins and 1/3 cup of sugar. cook for 20 minutes, until thick. add 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla and 1/2 cup of milk. cook for 10 minutes more. serve warm or cold. my mother added a squirt of canned whipped cream, i did not. we both agreed the pudding was yummy.