Ready or Not #74: Rice Pudding, Tapioca, and Red Mush with Cream

I have three really good, very easy, food storage friendly desserts to share with you this week. The first recipe is the best tasting rice pudding that I have ever eaten.

Lamb’s Rice Pudding 1 cup long grain rice (I use sticky rice because that is what I have stored and I like it better) 1 cup sugar 8 cups milk 4 eggs 2 (more) cups milk ¼ cup (more) sugar 2 teaspoon vanilla Ground cinnamon

In a large pan, combine rice with 1 cup sugar and 8 cups milk. Stir to blend. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until rice is tender. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, 2 cups milk, ¼ cup sugar and vanilla. Beat well with mixer. When the rice is tender, add egg mixture just until it starts to come to a boil. Remove from heat; cool, then chill.

Now, to make it the easy way, do like I do and cook it in the crock-pot. Put all of the ingredients in the crock pot. Turn it on high and cook for about 3 to 3 ½ hours. Stir it every once in a while, so it won’t burn on the bottom. It is so yummy, and it just amazes me how far 1-cup of rice will go.

My next favorite recipe is tapioca. There is just something decadent about Tapioca; it is so creamy and rich tasting. Homemade tapioca is the best, it is so very easy to make, and it can store forever in your food storage.

Tapioca 1/3 cup sugar 2 ¾ cup milk 3 tablespoons tapioca 1 egg, slightly beaten 1 teaspoon vanilla

Combine everything except the vanilla in a saucepan. Let stand for 5 minutes. Cook on medium until a full boil. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Cool for 20 minutes, stir, and serve warm or chilled. Makes 6 cups.

I saved the best for last, Red Mush with Cream. I love this stuff. My great-grandparents came from Denmark and brought this recipe with them. My grandma always had a big bowl of this in her fridge and we would eat it for breakfast or dessert. It was wonderful.

Red Mush with Cream ¼ cup tapioca A dash of salt 2 ½ cups fruit juice (we prefer plum juice) ½ cup sugar, or sweeten to taste

Mix tapioca, fruit juice and salt and sugar. Let stand 5 minutes. Bring to a boil over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Cool for 20 minutes. Stir well and serve warm or cold.

Basically, it is tapioca pudding made with fruit juice, preferably plum juice, instead of using milk. You can use other juices, like apricot, cherry, apple, or orange juice, but plum is the best. That is how easy it is. To make it redder in color, my grandma used to color it with beet juice; you can use food color if you want. To serve, cool it down and put it in individual bowls, sprinkle with a little sugar and cinnamon, and pour cream or canned milk over it. I could eat this every day.

Dawn