=Repurposed Rice Rice Pudding=

First thing you do is order take-out from a really good Thai restaurant. We went to Star of Siam on Metropolitan Avenue in Queens. When you order the food very spicy at Star of Siam, they take you at your word; they don’t patronize you as if you were a child or figure you’re the typical third-generation American who can’t handle anything spicier than a Big Mac. Either that or they think to themselves, “oh they think they want it very spicy, eh? We’ll show them ‘very spicy.'”

Anyway, you bring the food home and you don’t eat the rice. Or you eat so little of it that you have 2.5 cups of it left over. This is easy to do when you order takeout at Star of Siam, where the entrees are so gigantic and so “very spicy” each one is easily enough to satisfy two people, possibly even three, if the extreme heat doesn't do in your esophagus, sinuses, or gastrointestinal tract first. (You can, of course, skip the Thai dinner and boil your own rice, but this doesn’t kill two birds with one stone the way the first option does. Arborio works best, by the way, if you insist on doing it the hard way).

After dinner is over and you've cleared the table and your spouse has drifted couchward to channel flip between the Classic Car Channel and Pawn Stars, you dump the 2.5 cups of leftover rice in a big saucepan and add 2.5 cups of milk. Pour in a third to a half cup of sugar (I go lighter on the sugar but adjust to your own taste) and a half teaspoon or so of salt.  Turn on the stove to medium heat and stir the pot for fifteen to twenty minutes. You don’t have to stand there stirring constantly while reading the diary of Virginia Woolf but this is what I like to do. It helps pass the time and also helps to break down the starches in the rice, or at least I imagine it does; in any event, it seems to me that the more you stir the thicker and creamier the mixture gets, as if it wants to show you in a tangible way how much it appreciates the attention. 

From time to time, you can shake in some cinnamon if you like. You can sprinkle some on at the end, of course, or when you serve the pudding, but it’s not a bad idea to have some cinnamon cooked right in, especially if you like the taste of cinnamon.

When the fifteen to twenty minutes are up, most of the milk should be absorbed, so you stir in another half cup or so of milk as well as a beaten egg. ((You can take time out from the stirring and the Virginia Woolf at some point during the previous fifteen to twenty minutes to beat the egg.)) Now even if you’ve chosen not to stir constantly for the previous fifteen to twenty minutes, you need to get up off your lazy ass and show some initiative at this point. It's absolutely essential that you stir constantly for at least the next two minutes. Come on, you can do it.

If your pudding is looking too thin, you can cheat here by throwing in some corn starch, but you really shouldn’t need to do that if you haven't been slacking off in the stirring department. You can also add raisins at this point, but I’ve never been fond of raisins in rice pudding, as they’ve always reminded me of mouse turds. But that’s just me. If your imagination isn't similarly afflicted, toss in as many raisins as you like.

Okay, the two minutes of vigorous stirring should be about over by now. So turn the heat off. The last thing you need to do is to stir a tablespoon or two of butter along with a teaspoon or two of vanilla extract. Have a taste (at this point, your spouse, who you figured was asleep on the couch so quiet and scarce he's been for the last half-hour, usually reappears in the kitchen just in the nick of time to grab a spoon and render his verdict) to see if you’d like the pudding sweeter or if you want to taste more vanilla or cinnamon. 

Tonight, Papa Bear declares it to be "just right." Although traditionally served cold, rice pudding is surprisingly yummy in this warm state, especially on a cold winter night. Pour the pudding into whatever sort of covered ceramic container you want to use to store it.  Let the pudding stand until it reaches room temperature and then put it in the fridge to set.