Rudders at Home

Looking at my statistics, I’ve found a lot of people find my site looking for chocolate rice pudding. Because of this, I’ve decided to post my recipe, which I got out of a Sainsbury’s magazine. I’ve mentioned before that the recipe is from Nigella Lawson, and it’s also been published in her book, Feast, but for a much larger crowd.

I find this a really easy, gorgeous recipe. Nigella gives specific instructions on how to mix everything, but I tend to just throw everything together in a casserole dish and stick it in the oven. I find it to be quite liquidy, so I also end up cooking it for longer than she calls for, stirring it every half hour or so. I don’t know if it turns out right, but Paul likes it, so why change things now?

When I gave the recipe to my mom, it was in British style, meaning you have to get out the scales, which I don’t find that difficult or off putting anymore. However, because I suspect my mother hasn’t made it yet because of the British measurements and funny oven temperatures, I’ve tried to convert these. It’s all a bit hodgepodge, but I don’t think this pudding is a science. It tastes good, and that’s about it.

Chocolate Rice Pudding

3 tbsp cocoa

4 tbsp boiling water

1 tbsp vanilla extract

125 grams (about 1 1/2 cups) of arborio or pudding rice

100 grams (about 1/2 cup) sugar

1 litre (1 3/4 pints) (about 4 cups) milk

1 1/2 litre (2 1/2 pint) baking dish

Heat your oven to 150 C (300 F)

Dissolve the cocoa and water, and then stir in the milk. Add the vanilla extract, and pour this mixture into your baking dish. Then add the rice and sugar to the dish and stir together. Put this all into the over and bake for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

And that’s it! Enjoy!

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Up this morning around 4ish, we were out the door and headed North by 6, which is surely a record for us. We hit Birmingham around 9 and now, nearing 11, inevitably, we’ve come to a standstill.

Roadworks have come to haunt us in the Lake District. At least the scenery is decent. Lots of sheep with cute little lambs, hills and stone walls.

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We ran into a bit of foul weather on our way home from Dover today. I’ll write about Dover with pictures later, but wanted to first share with you the Arctic conditions we traveled home in. I kid you not, I’m quoting the radio when using the word “Arctic.”

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Paul and I went out on Friday night to Baltic. In short, it’s a restaurant with an Eastern European menu, and also apparently does live music, which I didn’t know about until I looked at their website. We booked our table for 7pm, and were seated right away when we arrived a bit early. The place was already a bit busy, and our orders were taken quite quickly. I thought they might try to push us a long, but no, they didn’t. The bill came quickly when we asked for it, (which is a change for us) but they didn’t even try to move us to the bar after we had paid and were taking our time on some after dinner drinks.

The place had a really nice atmosphere, polite waitstaff, the lighting was good and the food was gorgeous as well. I had pierogi to start, followed by cabbage stuffed with pork and veal. Paul had blinis to start, with a selection of items to go with and for his main he had a delicious venison dish. It was so good it made me wonder why I don’t order venison more often when we’re out… Dessert was a chocolate torte followed by some after dinner drinks.

We had a really good night there, and would definitely go back – even just for drinks.

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I really just wanted to see if my iPhone would allow me to post to my blog.

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