Pudding anyone?

About a decade ago, we learned that David has a food sensitivity to milk and milk products. So all of those comfort foods involving milk? I stopped making them. I really like tapioca pudding but haven’t made it in…oh, 10 years. One day last week, I saw a bag of small pearl tapioca at the grocer and thought “humm…why not make it with almond or coconut milk?” So I did. Here’s the recipe. It turned out great.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup small pearl tapioca (do not use instant tapioca)
3 cups “fake” milk of choice (e.g. almond, rice, coconut, soy)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/2 cup of sugar
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla (or extract of choice)

Method

0 Pre-soak the tapioca pearls for at least 3 hours, but preferably overnight. If you don’t do this, it will take a long, long, long time for the pearls to become translucent as they should.

1 Combine tapioca, milk (I used Trader Joe’s unsweetened coconut milk), and salt in 1 1/2 quart pan on medium high heat. Stir until boiling. Simmer 5 minutes, uncovered at very low heat, adding sugar gradually.

2 Beat the eggs in a separate bowl. Mix in some of the hot tapioca very slowly to equalize the temperature of the two mixtures.

3 Return egg mixture to the pan with tapioca. Slowly bring mixture barely to a boil, stirring constantly. Reduce heat and stir several minutes at a low simmer, stirring constantly until you get a nice thick pudding consistency. Cool at least 15 minutes. Add vanilla. Serve either warm or chilled.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Yesterday, we cut up firewood into small enough pieces to fit into the wood burning Shipmate stove aboard Mahdee. We now have four bins of firewood. From our prior experiences heating Mahdee with the wood stove, that wood should last us about a week. We didn’t use the Shipmate at all last winter–for cooking or heat. Instead we used the Taylors kero stove. This week we simply decided we’d be cheery and Christmas-like with the sounds and smell of wood burning.

Of course, I’ve been using the Shipmate oven to store things in. For the last year, the Shipmate stove top has provided additional storage for dish drain and more pots and pans. I’ve got bits and pieces of things stored under and between the stove and the heat shield as well. It will take me a couple hours to simply find new homes in the galley for all that stuff!