Rice Pudding to the Rescue

Creamy rice pudding with extra vanilla will comfort you and cheer you up either when you are not feeling well or having a bad day.

It gets so tiring having fructose malabsorption. I’ve been having…er…”tummy issues” lately and it is not fun. Sometimes I feel like it’s impossible to figure out what food is bothering me. Just when I think I can eat something, wham! no I can’t. At first I thought I was eating too much flax seed, so I cut that out. I still had issues. Now I’m thinking it’s the grapefruit. Just about every other day I have scrambled eggs and half a grapefruit for breakfast. Maybe it’s the eggs? No, more likely it’s the grapefruit. I’m going to try not eating grapefruit for a while and see how I feel. I hope it’s the answer.

In the mean time, I’m babying my belly. I like to eat things that settle it, like cheese, gluten-free table crackers and white rice. I wasn’t really hungry today, but I was getting shaky and needed to eat something. Rice pudding sounded good. I found a recipe that I could use instant rice with because that is all I had. I doubled the vanilla and reduced the sugar (and left out the raisins, of course!). To make this fructose-free, use dextrose powder (aka glucose). This recipe is great and just what my tummy needed. So creamy and satisfying. Here is my version of this comfort-food classic recipe.

Creamy Vanilla Rice Pudding
(adapted from Food.com)                                                                                                      print recipe

Ingredients

3/4 cup uncooked white rice
   ~or~ 1 1/2 cups instant minute rice
1 1/2 cups water
2 cups milk, divided (cow’s, almond, soy, etc.)
1/3 cup pure cane sugar ~or~ 1/2 cup powdered dextrose
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, bring 1 1/2 cups water to a boil. Stir in rice, reduce heat, cover and simmer for 20 minutes. If using instant minute rice, remove boiling water from heat, stir in instant rice and cover for 5 minutes.
2. In another large saucepan, combine the cooked rice, 1 1/2 cups milk, sugar and salt. Cook over medium heat until thick and creamy, about 15 to 20 minutes.
3. Stir together the remaining 1/2 cup milk and beaten egg. Stir into rice mixture and cook two more minutes, stirring constantly.
4. Remove from heat and stir in butter and vanilla. Serve warm sprinkled with ground cinnamon or nutmeg.