Waste Not, Want Not: Vanilla Rum Slow-Cooker Rice Pudding

If you’ve been following along with this blog, you know by now that I LOVE dessert, and that I hate wasting food. I love dessert because obvs, and I hate wasting food because how can you justify wasting a resource when it takes such energy for the earth to produce it, and when millions of starving people around the world would jump at the chance to be in your shoes? Respect the earth, don’t waste food; appreciate your luck, don’t waste food. And on a shallower note, wasted food = wasted money.

But back to dessert! I had leftover cream and vanilla bean sugar from when I made a Brown Butter Vanilla BeanWeekend Loaf recipe with my bake-a-long group. I also had a ton of milk powder that my mother-in-law had leftover from when she had made these delicious dulce de leche sweets for our wedding over a year ago. I looked at all those creamy things and thought…rice pudding!

I researched it a bit, and inspired by this recipe and this one, I came up with my own version. Try it out!

Feel free to play with the amounts and ingredients, to make the pudding to your taste. You’re basically cooking some form of milk and some form of sugar with some rice and seasonings in a slow-cooker, until it hits the consistency that you want it to have. Some like it thicker, some like it more syrupy. Each to his/her own!

• You can use milk, cream, or milk powder, or some variation thereof.
• You can use leftover cooked rice, or, since it’s being cooked for hours in a slow cooker, you can use uncooked rice and just make sure to add some extra liquid.
• You can use brown sugar, white sugar, maple syrup, or whatever sweetener you want.
• You can add vanilla beans, vanilla extract, cinnamon, anise, or whatever your foodie heart desires.

See how easy it is to come up with your own recipe? But if you want to make my version, here it is!

Vanilla Rum Slow-Cooker Rice Pudding

• 2 c. cream
• 5 heaping tbsp. milk powder
• 2 tsp. butter
• 1 tbsp. rum
• 1/2 c. brown sugar
• 1/2 vanilla sugar (white sugar that has been sitting around with a scraped out vanilla bean)
• 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1 c. uncooked rice (I used a mixture of white with wild rice)
• 2 c. water

Pop all the ingredients into the slow cooker, and give it a good stir. Put it on high heat for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Then put it on warm for 5-8 hours, until it reaches the consistency that you like. Serve in a bowl with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top, and enjoy this calcium-rich comfort food! 

I made this dish one evening after work, mixing it up and stirring for the three hours mentioned above, and then went to bed for 8 hours with the slow cooker on warm. I woke up to a warm bowl of rice pudding for breakfast! I convinced myself that the calcium and the wild rice made it healthy. Hey, it’s all about balance, yes?

Next Post: Speaking of comfort foods, I have a recipe for a lovely vegetarian Shepherd’s Pie to share with you. Stay tuned!