It’s March and that means puddings and custards! While some adults might think of puddings and custards as a childhood food (hence the the term ‘nursery puddings’) the Preheated hosts plan to elevate the simple puddings of your childhood and explore rice puddings, bread puddings, and creme brûlées. This is not your mother’s Jello!
Stefin gave us an update on her recent trip to Hawaii, where she kindly ate researched multiple puddings. Starting her day with a breakfast bread pudding made with King’s Hawaiian rolls and served with a hot coconut syrup, and then moving into a bread pudding topped with a marmalade layer and meringue, she fully explored the Island’s pudding offerings. If you haven’t seen the unusual coconut sweet potato pie she found, head on over to our Facebook group to check out her photos.
A bit closer to home, Andrea is swooning over the new retail storefront of her favorite bakery – Left Bank Pastry. When Andrea tackled macarons back in Episode 11 it was with these beauties in mind.
Onward to our first March recipe, a classic Old Fashioned Rice Pudding. This recipe came from a community cookbook and is credited to Ann Bender, Gladys M. High, and Mrs. Don Martins. While our hosts speculated on the origin of the recipe, they agreed they were most captivated by the cooking method, since this recipe uses the slow cooker; and the fact that the recipe uses cooked rice, which means you can turn your leftovers into dessert!
If you bake along, please note you might want to reduce the amount of nutmeg in the recipe. One full teaspoon of nutmeg seems like too much for our hosts, and you can always grate or sprinkle a bit more nutmeg on top of the individual rice pudding dishes, if you desire more flavor. On the topic of nutmeg toxicity, here’s a link to the New York Times article “A Warning on Nutmeg” that Andrea spoke about.
Are you a warm or cold rice pudding person?
Preheated Listeners gave us lots of nominations in our favorite food movies category. Some of our favorites one ones we’d already seen were Like Water for Chocolate, Chocolat, Babette’s Feast, Waitress, Jiro Dream of Sushi, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and Chef. Andrea shared a recent double-header night when she watched Burnt followed by Hundred Foot Journey. Stefin recommended two Nora Ephron-penned movies, When Harry Met Sally and Julia and Julia. Have you ever read a screenplay? Stefin thinks this may be a good place for you to start. She also recommends My Life in France by Julia Child, which is the basis for the “Julia” portion of Julie and Julia. Stefin’s favorite movie (or eating scene) comes from It’s A Wonderful Life while Andrea’s favorite is the final scene in Big Night.
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