Pantry Raid - Rice pudding

I'm still doing my best to focus on eating out the pantry, fridge and freezer. Yep, the economy is affecting my budget as it is with so many people. And, this is a great way to clean out accumulated foodstuffs and get in touch with some good old fashioned home cooking - rustic even.

I'm enjoy the posts over at Choas in the Kitchen. Right now Katie is doing a series called Blogging the Recession that I highly recommend.

In the past few months I've noticed how much Chinese Take-out I order.
And, you know what comes with that.
Rice.
More rice than even I can eat.
(And,that's saying a lot.)

So, I decided to just keep the rice accumulating in the fridge - very cold fridge with a thermometer-thankyouverymuch. No, nothing grew on it.

Last night I dumped said stale hard rice in a pot, stirred up a milky custard mixture, poured it over the rice, and stirred on very low heat. The heat was low enough to prevent the eggs from curdling or cream from forming a scab. I stirred it a good amount - I wanted to thicken the pudding with whatever starch was still left on the rice.

It worked. It thickened nicely. And, I tossed in some dried raisins and figs to soak up just a bit more of the liquid. Oh, and cinnamon. (Might have used a bit too much of that. Tastes great, but it's a bit muddy looking.)

So, I'm now that happy owner of about 8-10 servings of homemade rice pudding. And, it cost me a couple of cups of milk,cream and a few eggs. Yum. Plus - I feel all...resourceful.

AND...Tomorrow I'm having rice pudding for breakfast.
Bill Cosby would understand. ;)