Went to the store last night to pick up cabbage to make cabbage rolls today with the left over rice from last nights dinner. I made a whole lot of rice! I took a few cups of rice and added milk, eggs, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, and raisins and threw in the oven to make a quick version of rice pudding. My favorite version is by Barefoot Contessa called Rum Rice Pudding but you need at least an hour to stir constantly so it doesn't burn but it IS delicious if you ever get the chance to make it, here's the recipe:
RUM RICE PUDDING
Ingredients
3/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons dark rum
3/4 cup white basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 cups half-and-half, divided
1/2 cup sugar
1 extra-large egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Directions
In a small bowl, combine the raisins and rum. Set aside.
Combine the rice and salt with 1 1/2 cups water in a medium heavy-bottomed stainless steel saucepan. Bring it to a boil, stir once, and simmer, covered, on the lowest heat for 8 to 9 minutes, until most of the water is absorbed. (If your stove is very hot, pull the pan halfway off the burner.)
Stir in 4 cups of half-and-half and sugar and bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, until the rice is very soft. Stir often, particularly toward the end. Slowly stir in the beaten egg and continue to cook for 1 minute. Off the heat, add the remaining cup of half-and-half, the vanilla, and the raisins with any remaining rum. Stir well. Pour into a bowl, and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Serve warm or chilled.
3/4 cup raisins
2 tablespoons dark rum
3/4 cup white basmati rice
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
5 cups half-and-half, divided
1/2 cup sugar
1 extra-large egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Directions
In a small bowl, combine the raisins and rum. Set aside.
Combine the rice and salt with 1 1/2 cups water in a medium heavy-bottomed stainless steel saucepan. Bring it to a boil, stir once, and simmer, covered, on the lowest heat for 8 to 9 minutes, until most of the water is absorbed. (If your stove is very hot, pull the pan halfway off the burner.)
Stir in 4 cups of half-and-half and sugar and bring to a boil. Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, until the rice is very soft. Stir often, particularly toward the end. Slowly stir in the beaten egg and continue to cook for 1 minute. Off the heat, add the remaining cup of half-and-half, the vanilla, and the raisins with any remaining rum. Stir well. Pour into a bowl, and place a piece of plastic wrap directly on top of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming. Serve warm or chilled.
CABBAGE ROLLS
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Now Place a large pan of water with a head of cabbage in it on a burner on high to heat while working on the rice. I then took 2 lbs ground beef, 2 onions,1 red pepper ( I would typically use green peppers but I had these froze), salt, pepper, and butter and cooked in a fry pan until done. I then dumped 2 -28 ounce cans of diced tomatoes, 1 tsp chopped garlic, sugar, italian seasoning, salt, pepper, and red hot to taste all in and simmered for about 30 minutes. I then dumped this over a large bowl with about 6 cups of rice ( all of these are approx. and can be adjusted to taste) and stirred adding a little bit more of each thing listed till it was how I wanted to taste. I then dumped a couple cups of shredded mexican cheese and mixed. By now the pan with the cabbage is boiling. I took a pair of tongs and held the stem on the cabbage and used a knife to cut the leaves away and grab them with the tongs and pulled them out of the pan and laid on a plate. Do this until the leaves are too small to be able to stuff and then take what is left out onto a plate cut core away and toss in the garbage and then chop what is left and toss in the burger and rice mixture. Get a couple cake pans out and butter them, then take a cabbage leaf in your palm and put a large spoon of rice mixture and stuff the leaf and roll up the best you can and lay seam down in the buttered cake pan. Continue till they are all rolled and in the pan. I then took a 28 ounce can of tomato sauce and added sugar, salt, and pepper to taste and spooned over each cabbage roll, dab with butter and then cover each pan with foil and toss in the oven an hour or until the cabbage is very tender and alot of the liquid is cooked out. Take the foil off for another half hour to dry up some of the liquid and brown slightly. Serve!
I served a huge pan of these for dinner and have enough for lunch tomorrow and another whole large pan for freezer! Sorry about the small text. Not sure why it did this.
VERY GOOD AND VERY FRUGAL! IF YOU USED CHICKEN IT WOULD BE EXTREMELY FRUGAL!!
