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Better Than Cake: Aunt Edna's Rice

by on ‎04-02-2015 04:27 PM

I hate winter. Okay, I'm a sucker for a white Christmas. And fine, there's nothing quite like a warm, toasty fire when the weather outside is, well, frightful.


I also really like winter comfort foods. The kind that take hours to cook. The kind you make because you're snowed in and your furnace needs all the help it can get.


My all-time favorite comfort-food dish is "Aunt Edna's Rice," courtesy of my grandmother. Aunt Edna was my great aunt (on my grandfather's side) but I never met her. And my grandmother doesn't know where Edna found the recipe. She just knows it was a depression-era dish..."an oldie but goodie," she would say.


Because of the time it takes to make this magic rice (which, by the way, tastes kind of like rice pudding but better), Grammie didn't make it all that often. It was a special occasion when she did. Lucky for me, I was guaranteed to have it at least once a year on my birthday, because I requested it over cake. Yes, it's that good.


Ingredients for Aunt Edna's Rice


Ingredients:


4 cups milk (from powder)


1/4 cup raw white rice


1/2 cup sugar


1 tsp vanilla


1/4 tsp nutmeg


1/4 tsp salt


2 Tbsp butter, cut into pieces


1/2 cup raisins


Preparation:


Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease a 9" x 9" casserole dish.


Combine the ingredients, except the butter and raisins, in a medium-size bowl. Pour the mixture into the casserole dish and dot the top with the butter.


Dot top with butter


Bake for 1 hour. Stir in the raisins. 


Add raisins


Bake for 1-1/2 hours, or until all liquid has been absorbed. Stir frequently.


Two helpful notes: one, Edna's recipe called for powdered milk but I've used normal Vitamin D milk and didn't notice a difference; two, it takes every bit of 2-1/2 hours for the milk to cook down. You won't really need to stir during that first hour, but I break that last 90-minute chunk into three 30 minute portions, so I don't forget to stir it.


I've made this dish at least five times over the winter and just finished my final helping for the season.


Piping hot: Aunt Edna's Rice


How long until next winter?


-Foodie Friend Amy