All The Single(Serve) Ladies: Lightning Never Strikes Rice

At least, that’s what I hear, so if you make this you’ll be totally safe to stand out in the middle of an epic thunderstorm with a bowl of deliciousness for protection. Who knew you were so versatile little grain of many colours? (is that a musical in the making or is it just me? 😉 ). Have you figured it out yet? Were the photos and nonsensical pun not a dead giveaway? This week, our single serve dessert travels take us all the way to the wild and mysterious world of rice pudding.

Now to some people (ahem…Kevin), rice pudding is all things blasphemous in the dessert world. He’s not a fan of the texture, the taste, who knows what else? I, on the other hand, absolutely love it, but pretty much never ever make it because it’s not exactly your most party bring-along-friendly dessert. I mean, I once tried to throw it at a bride and groom at a wedding, but, uh…that didn’t go over so well (friendship over 😉 ). Although I find it delectably awesome-sauce both hot and cold, I’ve actually never made a baked rice pudding before, I’ve always just done it as a stovetop thing. So what better time to try out something (slightly) new, then when I’m doing a single serve? If it’s terrible, no real harm done, but if it’s delicious, I’m sure I could expand this to fill a huge casserole dish for when I have that rice party every year? (Oh, by the way Kevin – I’m now initiating an annual rice party 😉 ).

Have you ever actually checked out the rice section of your local grocery store (or your local fancy-pants, highly overpriced store will probably be even worse in this regard)? Who knew there were ninety gadgillion varieties of rice to choose from? (give or take a gadgillion 😉 ). Due to various rice purchasing requirements in the past, about 6 months ago, I finally actually noticed how much partially used up bags of rice we have in our cupboard and have been trying diligently ever since to work my way through it. Pretty much every dinner soup/stew/curry has now involved tossing in some rice whether a recipe calls for it or not. Upside of this is that I’ve now managed to whittle my way down to a mere 3 bags of rice (after 6 months people, so you can just imagine how much rice we had before. If our initial rice stock had been locusts, the human population would no longer exist….sooooo…good thing that wasn’t the case 🙂 . Flip side though, if it had been money, I could’ve embraced my inner Oprah and gifted you all with your own car. Unfortunately, that wasn’t true either 🙁 . Oh Rapunzel, learn to spin rice into gold and get over here stat!). The only downside here is that when I went to make rice pudding, I felt left with the choice of using brown rice, calrose rice or sticky rice. Believe it or not, this gave me total decision paralysis. Brown rice and make it (theoretically) a bit healthier? But maybe the rice would stay too chewy? Calrose rice because it was finer grain and maybe more like regular rice? Or sticky rice because it might make it creamier and more like a risotto-esque rice pudding? Mix them all together because I truly can’t make a choice? Can you believe that this decision actually caused me anxiety?

I think my brain was just fried after a crazy busy week at work so I was completely incapable of something as simple as choosing rice (clearly I’m in need of someone to call the people in white coats to come and take me away in a straitjacket because there is obviously something wrong with me 🙂 ). If you too are ever in this situation, feel free to do what I did which was that I noticed on the front of my bag of sticky rice, it literally said “ideal for preparing sushi, Asian desserts, and rice puddings.” Thank you rice bag, you have dictated my actions. Inanimate objects for the win!

I swear, this recipe has been the easiest thing I’ve ever made (Oh Amber, you’ve said that so often it’s lost all meaning). It doesn’t take 2 seconds from conception to consumption (oh alliteration, I’m in love with you), but it does take two seconds to get it from your cupboard to you oven. You literally mix all the ingredients together (not in stages, just literally throw it all together), place it in a ramekin and bake it for 45-60 minutes. You can feel all righteous and do, like laundry or something while it’s baking. Or take a nap which sounds even more enjoyable (do not do this one though if you’re a heavy sleeper, because you may then wake up to either charred rice pudding or your house burning down (I really can’t decide which of those two things are the bigger tragedy to be honest 😉 ).

I hate to be puddin’ you on the spot here, but I think your oven needs some lovin’, and this just might be the rice dish to do it 😉