For your consideration: Arborio Rice Pudding: White, Black (or Both) from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 412-413 featured this week on Tuesdays with Dorie.Repress the gag reflex and don't yack, it's just a really crappy picture. When I first saw this recipe I was skeptical – I even halved the recipe. I was in agreement with some of the other TWDers who commented that rice pudding doesn’t exactly bring whoops of excitement into their lives. One of the news flashes was a post from Herself, stating that there was a typo regarding the cooking time: “50” minutes, not 30. Glad I read that before I started.
I followed the directions faithfully, halved the recipe and increased the cooking time and ya know what? I LIKE rice pudding. I do. The spoonful I ate convinced me that I definitely like it “plain” without the extra vanilla or chocolate that the recipe calls for. Not black, not white or both. Neither. No yin, no yang, just plain. The Tao of Pudding and my life of late or so it seems.
A bloggy friend just demanded of me “Where the hell have you been?” Sorry I’ve been absent for a while. In addition to recovering from that cold, I’ve been seriously down in the dumps and it all revolves around food, glorious food. I went MIA, only made a half batch of pudding, didn’t experiment, only ate one spoonful, and barely stirred up enough enthusiasm to take a questionably passable picture – what’s up with that, Lisa? Well, you see my lab tests came back as definitely reflecting my participation in TWD and my love of food in general. My cholesterol and triglyceride levels seem to indicate that molten butter is starting to course through my veins while expanding my waistline at the same time. Which explains the tone of this pudding post and also my conundrum. Metaphorically speaking, since I can’t eat it, my DH shouldn’t, and my kids won’t (well, except for the Messy One)…. What’s a girl to do? Needless to say this little kick in the pants has taken me a while to process offline and figure out what I want and how to get there.
I've decided that I’m gonna shake, shake, shake it off because where I’ve landed is that I’m going to re-explore the Cooking Light/Light Cooking side of the food fence. I did Weight Watchers for a few years and I know how to dance that dance. The other weight loss program that really (really) works is Take Shape for Life/Medifast. Yes, it’s true. Just like the infomercials, I dropped over 13 pounds in 2 months: after that I was feeling so great that I dove head first into a pound of unsalted butter and wallowed around in it. I'm still down 8 pounds, so that's reason to celebrate, but I want to go all the way to my dream weight. So, an actual diet and eating mindfully: those two things should help with the diet part of the "diet and exercise" mantra (yin, yang, ok so I get it already). Doing T-Tapp at home and going to classes and meeting my friend at the gym (does it HAVE to be 5:00 AM though?) are the exercise part. Yin, yang, rhymes with Tang and I love orange Tang and oranges with chocolate and those orange chocolate wham things and (I need help.)
Before I cross over to the dark side, I’ll be posting some recipes I’ve already made and photographed, but haven’t uploaded yet. Some of these are oh so bad but OH so good. If I can bring myself to revisit those pictures and stop from salivating ( just the thought of this one particular recipe is making me drool and causing tears of joy to spring to my eyes, and yes it involves browned butter sauce, and is quite possibly The Best Thing I’ve put in my mouth EVER!) (and probably the big reason for those abysmal test results), I will share those with you so you can steer clear of my wicked ways. Yin. Yang.
As for the Rice Pudding? It was good. Really good. Thanks to Isabelle of Les gourmandises d’Isa for choosing this recipe. To see what all the other TWDers did with it, check out the blogroll here. If you'd like to try making Dorie’s version of Arborio Rice Pudding for yourself, you can find the recipe on our hostess’s blog, or in Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours.
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I'm glad you liked it. YUM!
ReplyDeleteI have a similar problem Lisa. I tend to give lots of my baked goodies away just so they won't be in the house to eat. My neighbors and co-workers love me for it, and so does my waistline.
ReplyDeleteGreat food....why do you have to be bad for us???
Lisa, I'm so with you, and I know it's not fun for you right now. There are some really great recipes to be cooked, however. Cooking Light has a bunch of yummy ones. I've been on that cooking healthy wagon for years, but with a wicked sweet tooth on the side. I lost about 13 pounds too, and bounce around a bit now. TWD and baking in general can be a struggle, but eating mindfully and the exercise does work! I make half recipes a lot, give away most of what I bake, and just let myself eat sweets on the weekends. And I made a rule that I have to exercise 4 times in a week or I can't blog the TWD recipe- that's been good motivation.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're back, and your pudding looks fab! Hang in there...
Nancy
I love giving away goodies! That is part of the fun in baking! I sample of course but can't eat them all or I would be in big trouble!
ReplyDeleteThe pudding looks great!! Glad you liked it!
Actually, Lisa, I think your pictures are fine -- that's just what the rice pudding looks like! Not the most photogenic of the desserts! I will look forward to following you as you explore the healthy cooking side of things! I've enjoyed doing some Cooking Light recipes under Clara's (iheartfoodforthought) avatar, and some friends here are trying to get me to joing Craving Ellie in my Belly, a new blogging group based on Ellie Krieger's "Foods You Crave" (which is supposed to be full of healthy, delicious food). Good luck with everything!
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that rice pudding was meant to be photogenic. And I've been exercising like a maniac to try to offset TWD, so I know where you're coming from.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with your new diet/exercise plan, I sincerely hope you get the results you want. It's tough, we all love to eat!!
ReplyDeleteOH, Lisa, no, don't leave us. Just kidding. I try to balance the healthy and the goodies. I may lean a little more to the goodie side, but I know I eat healthy meals, exercise, etc., so I tell myself it's okay.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked the plain pudding! I thought it was 'eh.'
I feel your pain. I talk about food a lot, but I don't eat what I usually talk about. If I ate as much pie as I composed odes to, my fingers would be too fat to write!
ReplyDeleteYour pudding looks great! I bring in my food to the library and my co-workers eat everything! Whew!
ReplyDeleteDieting constantly is tough, but don't look at it as a diet, but as a new way of eating and living your life and it gets so much easier. Watching what you eat and constantly exercising gets so tiring, but overall, it's better for you and you'll live a longer and healthier life! Here's to you!
ReplyDeleteIt definitely wasn't easy to photograph well or artfully "rice pudding." But I think yours looks great! Good luck with your new plan.
ReplyDeleteYou knwo - one day I'm going to join this TWD group you guys have going...one day.
ReplyDeleteLisa ~ I am sorta in the same boat ~ I found out I was prediabetic on Halloween (what timing!). So, I am slowly but surely changing around the recipes I love so they suit me and everybody else in this house will just have to deal :) I have cut out the sugary stuff, or at least made them a little more healthy. My problem is with carbs as I am not a big sweet eater.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on your journey!
Nancy
Baking and cholesterol don't mix well. I'm looking forward to your lighter fare here at magic sprinkles!
ReplyDeleteNice to hear you liked the RP. I think we all have to fight the sugar fairies off the old hips and thighs of life. Bummer too. The best to you and take care.
ReplyDeleteHappy Baking - for friends maybe?
AmyRuth