This little gem of a recipe happened by accident they are the best aren’t they?! The star of the show on last weeks evening meals menu was Haggis, so the rice pudding and spiced winter fruits offering was more to do with keeping a Scottish theme. I found the recipe on scotland.org the recipe asked for apple, pear, plums, and brambles – lovely!
The snow had set in, and being a scare-dy cat driver, I really didn’t want to head out. This was definitely going to be an I Cook You Serve adaptation!
I wandered over to the fruit bowl to see what was lurking in there delighted to see some nice big cooking apples, an large orange and a punnet of cherries, Yesss! A bloomin good start. I wandered over to the dry store cupboard and found apricots, cranberries, tick tick! I wanted more berries so wandered over to the freezer blueberries excellent!
Off to the chopping board, I peeled and chopped two apples straight in the saucepan, on a low heat. I juiced the orange and poured that into the pan to help get the apples going. I chucked everything else in a very technical way (!) The cherries and blueberries released their juices and the apples started cooking down. The recipe asked for sugar so I reached for the honey, I had cinnamon sticks but no star anise but I did have cardamom pods so crushed them in they went. The rice was already cooked with vanilla so I left it out of this mix. The mix smelled so very very good the cinnamon sticks are like magic aren’t they? After a quick taste test I added another hit of honey and I zested the orange to get another blast of flavour. The apples were the only ingredient that required cooking so this all took about 15mins before I took it off the heat leaving apples sturdy enough the withstand reheating.
A pleasing dish to prepare, not just for the smell but the taste. That may be an obvious statement given this is all about eating and tasting. What I mean is this dish is a superb way to train the palate to enjoy the natural sweetness in fruits without chucking chocolate or tons of sugar. Your palate can be exercised and trained into enjoying flavours that you perhaps dismissed in earlier years.
It’s common knowledge that tastes change, this can be a result of hormonal, change medication or more recently due to covid. What perhaps hasn’t crossed our mind is that we too can choose to train our palate. A blog for another day maybe?
The colours of the winter fruits looked so bright and offered contrast while sitting on top of the baked rice pudding. This would also work on top of a cereal for breakfast, you could top the mix with yoghurt or ice-cream, hey you could eat it with toast! The key to the waffling above is to reiterate that recipes are just a guide, they can be tweaked and adapted to suit your taste buds, budget and even driving conditions!
What are your snow food stories? Let us know in our Foodfulness Facebook group
Warmest wishes
Liz
