Mana's Southern Rice Pudding (my favorite way to eat rice!)

Ever wondered what to do with leftover cooked rice. I'll tell you what to do - make a rich and comforting baked rice pudding, the very essence of "comfort food." I've seen some recipes that are cooked on top of the stove, but mom's was baked in the oven where it develops into a wonderful custard. It's great just like that, but I saw a recipe in a Southern Living Magazine once that added two ingredients at the end and made a crunchy caramel brulee-like top and although I've never tried it, I'm putting it here because I think it would really be the pièces de résistance. Prep time on this is only 5 min. It cooks for 1 hr. 30 min. This recipe serves 4.

Ingredients
4 eggs, beaten
3 cups milk
1 cup sugar
½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups cooked leftover cooked rice ( If you don't have leftover rice cook 1/2 c. uncooked rice with one 1 c. water. Let rice fully cool before using. )
½ teaspoon cinnamon
½ cup raisins

Instructions
Beat eggs. Stir in sugar. Add other ingredients. Stir.
Spray oven proof casserole dish with Pam. Pour mixture into dish.
Set dish in pan of hot water and bake at 300 degrees for 90 minutes.
After 30 minutes of cooking insert spoon at edge of pudding and stir from the bottom to distribute rice and raisins.

Place the baking dish in a larger pan and filled with hot water to within 1” of the top of the baking dish. To make this easier to handle, I place my filled baking dish in the empty larger pan. Then sit it on the oven rack and add the water. Much easier than trying to carry the pan filled with hot water and pudding all together! Bake uncovered for 1 to 1 ½ hours. Stir well after the first 30 minutes of baking, pulling the rice/custard up from the bottom.. Continue baking until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean. Start checking after the first full hour of cooking and remove immediately when done. Do not overcook. This is good at room temperature or chilled (I prefer it warm.)

Allow the pudding to cool for about 30 minutes.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Sprinkle over the cooled pudding. Place under the broiler (or use a torch) until the topping is melted and bubbly.
Topping:
2 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. cinnamon

Mana's Homemade Vanilla Pudding (with pie variations)

Mana used this for her famous and delicious banana pudding (double the recipe because this won't last long!). For banana pudding, line a deep dish with vanilla wafers then a layer of sliced bananas. After the pudding has cooled about 20 min, pour 1/2 on top of layers. Add another layer of cookies and bananas (don't forget sides!) and finish with the rest of pudding. Mana liked the vanilla wafers to get soft so she just covered with wax paper and let it sit on the counter instead of refrigerating...until it was served - it didn't last long anyway! You can also use this as a base for banana cream pie or coconut cream pie. Use about 2 more T. flour to thicken it up for pie and add sliced bananas into cooled vanilla pie filling or if making coconut cream pie, add  2 c. grated coconut; top with merangue, lightly sprinkle with coconut and brown merangue in oven. Refrigerate after cooling. Pies can be topped with meringue and then refrigerated. Each recipe makes one pie.

Mix together in a medium size pan on stove:

3/4 c. sugar
6 T. flour
dash salt

Gradually stir in the 2 1/2 c. milk

When it just starts to very lightly boil and thicken you put spoonfuls, one at a time into 2 egg yolks that have been beaten lightly (Mana did this in a 1 cup measuring cup) stirring constantly to keep the eggs from cooking too fast. After you have added about 3-4 spoonfuls of pudding and stirred into the eggs, dump in the egg/pudding mixture and turn off the heat (Don't just put the egg straight into the pan without mixing first or the egg will cook immediately and you'll have lumpy pudding.)

Add 2 T. real butter and 1-2 t. vanilla and stir in.

 

OLD FASHIONED BANANA PUDDING or COCONUT CREAM PIE

Old Fashioned Banana Pudding or 
Coconut Cream Pie

(* Use same custard recipe but instead of bananas and cookies, stir in 1 cup sweetened coconut, pour into 9" cooked pie shell. Top with meringue and sprinkle coconut carefully over meringue before baking. Cool on the counter then refrigerate.)

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour 
1/2 teaspoon salt 
2 cups milk (NOT skim) 
* 4 or 5 ripe bananas, sliced thin (cover with plastic wrap or sprinkle with lemon juice to keep them from turning brown) 
* 1 box vanilla wafers 
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract 
1 tablespoon Butter (not margarine) 
4 Egg yolks (Large eggs or better)

Meringue: 5 egg whites, room temperature (be sure no yolk gets into the white when separating)
6 tablespoons sugar 
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar 
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Directions: Preheat oven to 375°F. Line the bottom of a 9×9-inch pan with a layer of vanilla wafers. Combine sugar, flour and salt in a bowl, and mix well. Set aside. In a heavy saucepan, beat the egg yolks well. Over medium heat, add the flour mixture to the egg yolks, alternately with the milk and vanilla, stirring constantly. Bring to a gentle boil and, when the mixture begins to thicken, add the butter, continuing to stir. Keep boiling and stirring until mixture reaches a nice pudding consistency. Make sure you don’t scorch the pudding. Remove from heat. Place a layer of banana slices on top of the vanilla wafers. Pour half of the pudding over the banana layer. Put down another layer of vanilla wafers, another layer of banana slices, and cover with the remaining pudding. Beat the egg whites at high speed until they form soft peaks. Add the cream of tartar. At high speed, gradually add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time, and beat until stiff peaks form. Fold the vanilla into the meringue, and spread the meringue over the pudding, sealing it at the sides of the dish. Bake until meringue browns, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool off and eat, or refrigerate to chill.