Grandma's Rice Pudding

Grandma’s Rice Pudding
Dorcas Annette Walker

I beg your indulgence as I continue to reminisce while giving another recipe of my grandmother. My English grandmother’s big bowl of Rice Pudding was a dish that I always knew I’d find at her house whenever we would visit her. Along with a cup of tea, we would eat a bowl of rice pudding as a dessert or in between snack as this one of my mother’s favorite desserts. A few occasions I got to be with my grandmother and help her make Rice Pudding. I was fascinated seeing her stir the Rice Pudding with a wooden spoon as it slowly baked in the oven because the wooden spoon in our house functioned for a totally different purpose.

The wooden spoon in our household was used for discipline starting at an early age. I grew up in the dark ages where children were expected to obey their parents. I don’t know if my grandmother also employed the wooden spoon for correction or if my mother started the tradition on her own. I do know that when my children came along I soon found the wooden spoon to be very handy not only for baking, but as an ideal aid for obedience. My husband called me “Machine Gun Kellie” whenever I applied the wooden spoon. My daughter, who hated the sound of my kitchen drawer opening when she knew I was getting out the wooden spoon now, uses a wooden spoon of her own. When Dwight worked in the body shop he told about his wooden spoon experiences growing up and was asked to make a wooden spoon for one of the fellows. Dwight toyed with the idea of going into business making and selling “Mom’s Wooden Spoons”.

I am totally against child abuse. I was taught that a child’s will was not to be broken, but molded in the right direction. I’ve noticed that it is often the parents who don’t discipline, but let their children run all over them or slowly do the countdown eventually reach a breaking point and end up abusing their children. Instead of children being seen and not heard, now-a-days you hear children while shopping before you ever see them inflicting havoc on everyone’s nerves. I often wonder what the harassed mothers of screaming children, who inform everyone that she can’t do anything with her young’un, will do once the child reaches his teen years. In such cases I often wish I had a wooden spoon to hand out.

My Grandma’s Rice Pudding is an old fashion filling creamy dessert that can be served by itself, with canned fruit, or cake. Raisins or other dried fruit can be added for color or taste. Preparation time for Grandma’s Rice Pudding is fifteen minutes (not counting baking time) and this recipe serves ten.

Grandma’s Rice Pudding

2 c cooked rice
1 c sugar
2 (12 oz) cans evaporated milk
Nutmeg

Butter a large baking bowl. Mix the rice and sugar together. Pour each can of milk in a 4 c measuring cup, fill up with warm water, and microwave for three minute- twice. Add to rice mixture and stir. Sprinkle nutmeg on top and bake at 350º for one hour stirring at least once. Serve warm or cold. Garnish with a sprinkle of cinnamon!

Weekly tip: Quick ways to butter a baking dish is to partially un-wrap a stick of margarine and rub along the sides of the dish or use an empty margarine wrapper!

Dorcas Annette Walker is a published author, columnist, speaker, freelance magazine writer, and photographer from Jamestown, Tennessee. Contact her at: dorcaswalker@twlakes.net. For more recipes check out her Creative Tennessee Mountain Cookin blog at: www.dorcasannettewalker.webs.com