How I cook: Rice Pudding edition **Updated**

So. This is a tiny peek inside my brain.

We had Chinese food last night and lots of leftover rice. Wanted to make rice pudding. Wanted a baked rice pudding. So I looked online.

Found this one. Looked good. And so I set out, preheating the oven.

1 C. cooked rice. Hmmm. I have a small takeout container. That seems to be about two cups. Probably fine. Smoosh up into casserole. SHOOT, forgot to grease pan. Oh well.

2 1/2 C milk. Well, I doubled the rice. But FIVE cups of milk? That seems like a lot. Let's start with 3 and see what we think.

3 large eggs. Obviously needs to be increased, but maybe not double since am not doubling milk. Will whisk up five.

3/4 C. sugar. Am thinking of avoiding white sugar when possible. Will use honey granules instead.* And since honey is sweeter than sugar, will only use 1C.

3/4 C. raisins. Hate raisins in stuff. Will use dried cranberries. And 1 C of them.

Spices. Will use pumpkin pie spice instead. Because I have a whole jar even though I don't make pumpkin pie nearly often enough for my husband.

Add honey granules to the milk, add whisked eggs into milk. Add cranberries to rice in bowl. Sprinkle spice onto of rice and mix with hands. GOOPY! Begin to pour milk/egg mixture into rice. Realize forgot vanilla AND salt. Add to milk, without measuring, in some quantity more than called for in recipe. Add rest to rice.

Find 9 x 13 pan. Realize that it (stoneware) is UNDERNEATH all other stoneware pans even though it is the only one ever used. Sigh. Do weight lifting for the day.

Follow directions for water bath and pop into oven.

Sigh satisfactorily for having successfully followed a recipe.

*If I have piqued your interest re: honey granules, don't buy from that link, it is way expensive. Buy from these people. It is where I buy grain stuff for my mill. The website is non-user friendly, but I trust the quality.

UPDATE: It turned out really well, though I cooked it about an hour and 45 minutes. And in the middle had to spin the oven up to 350 to quick cook some chicken. But when stuff is in a water bath on a low oven, it is hard to really mess it up. Next time I might add some grated orange peel. Because I didn't double the milk, it is a bit more solid than the picture of hers, which is fine with me. I served mine with a drizzle (ahem) of heavy cream.