plain pudding.

Apparently, the rice cooker is not the proper venue for making puddings. The carrot one turned out lumpy, which I thought was because I stirred it too much, but I made a plain one today and didn't stir it and it still didn't set really well. It makes little pudding pieces but the whole thing won't come together to be the texture of flan. I imagine it has something to do with how the rice cooker heats up in stages. But it still tasted really good. And gave me a way to use up the end of the milk. I used the last 2 cups of it, 2 eggs, only half a cup of sugar and vanilla and cinnamon. It wasn't very photogenic so I didn't take a picture.

Carrot pudding

It looks kind of gross but it tasted surprisingly good - like pumpkin pie, almost. I had grated one big carrot (about 2 cups worth) and melted some butter in the rice cooker. I stirred the carrot into the butter and beat an egg. Then I added milk, sugar and vanilla to the egg and poured that into the carrot and butter in the rice cooker. It smelled sort of like pie so I decided to add cinnamon, which made the egg mixture turn brown instead of off-white. I had no idea how long to cook it, since I'd gotten the idea from grated sweet potato recipes that baked for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes, but I think it was in the rice cooker for about an hour. I took the lid off for a while to let some of the liquid evaporate because the carrots made it too wet.

I think I should not have stirred it (because I was afraid it would stick, but it didn't) and then the egg mixture might have set a bit more, rather than being carrot shreds with flan-like stuff mixed in. It didn't taste at all like carrots, but like pumpkin pie. The recipe I used called for 3/4 a cup of sugar, which I thought might be too much, but that's how much I used and it definately was not too sweet. Also, it was quite good chilled as a leftover.

grated carrot risotto

So I've decided. No more writing long detailed entries about how I made dinner on my Japan blog.

Instead, I'll write them here.

Today I decided to start using my carrots. I grated one in the morning. It weighed 300 grams (that's 2/3 of a pound). So to give you an idea, there were probably 3 to 4 cups of grated carrot when I started. I put garlic (3 small cloves, definately not enough) and olive oil and rice (I started with half a rice cooker cup and then added the second half when I realized the carrots were far more substantial than I realized). I added water periodically for half an hour and tried to stir it occasionally (I should have used the bigger pan). And then I declared it done. In my researching carrot risotto online, I found one that said to let it sit for 2 minutes after cooking, which I used to get out my dish and a leftover box and put cheese on the table. It didn't make much of a difference, but maybe that's because I used grated carrot instead of carrot puree or carrot juice, like most of the reciepes used. I was sort of expecting the carrot to disintegrate a little bit more than it did, but it got pretty soft. It was kind of bland except for the little garlic (which is why I think it needs more) but the cheddar cheese on top was tasty (that's why it looks especially orange in the picture).