Rice Pudding and Glorified Rice!

We most often think of rice pudding as a dessert, but when I was a kid some people ate a kind of hot and soupy rice pudding for breakfast that was delicious. Now, there are many ways to cook rice pudding, and here are a few of them.

One

Cook up about three-quarters of one cup of common house rice by stirring the rice into about one-and-one-half cups of boiling water. This can take about 20 minutes.

Mix your cooked rice with about one-and-one-half cups of milk, about one-third-of-a-cup of sugar, and just a pinch of salt. Keep stirring it. You want it real creamy.

Stir in another half-cup of milk, one well-beaten egg, at least one tablespoon of butter, and one-half-of-a-teaspoon of vanilla. People do arguer over how much butter to use. I think that one tablespoon is a little cheap, but try that. But be sure to take the mixture off of the heat before you add your butter and vanilla.

Some people will add cardamom or cinnamon and raisins. Some folks bake their pudding.

Two

Bring about one cup of water to a boil and add in one cup of rice and a pinch of salt. Cover that and set it aside for about five minutes. Add two tablespoons of butter, one cup of milk, and a handful or two of raisins. Put this back on your stove and stir it 'til the milk is absorbed. Take if off of the heat and add two slightly beaten eggs, about one-third-of-a-cup of sugar, and one teaspoon of vanilla. Put this in a baking dish and stir it with a fork and sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake that at 350 for about thirty minutes.

Three

This is called "Glorified Rice" and was a favorite in the Southern Colorado coalfields.

Add one-quarter-of-a-cup of rice to one quart of boiling water that has one teaspoon of salt in it. Stir this and keep stirring it 'til the rice is tender.

Pour the rice into a sieve, wash it off with cold running water, and transfer the rice into a large mixing bowl. Add one-half-of-a-cup of whipping cream, one-quarter-of-a-cup of sour cream, three-quarters-of-a-cup of sugar, one-half-of-a-cup of chopped almonds, one-half-of-a-cup of crushed pineapple, and one-half-of-a-cup of miniature marshmallows. Put this in a refrigerator and eat it when you hear it calling your name. That usually happens for me at about 2:00 AM.

A note on sources

I wasn't certain about these recipes so I checked in with Cooking the Coalwood Way (Welch, W. VA., 2002) and the County Cookbook (Walsenburg, Colorado, 1984). Janet Jones gets credit for the second recipe and Marlene Menghini gets credit for the third recipe. I don't know where I got the first recipe from. I do have fond memories of the Menghini family.