I do love autumnal food...
Soups, casseroles, stews, hot puddings etc etc.
I made a baked rice pudding yesterday. And a crockpot one today.
Almond milk makes the best rice puddings, amazingly creamy with vastly less calories than the usual milk & cream mixture!
I love baked rice pudding, and yes the skin is the best bit IMO...
But actually I think the crockpot version had better flavour and less calories!!! So I had some black forest fruit (tesco frozen) on top!
The only thing was it ended up too thick so next time I will use less rice (so even less calories). Thankfully as I have a mini crockpot I had only made a half batch. And I even followed a recipe that talked about it making a stirable pudding because I was worried about the rice/liquid ratio in the crockpot (as you don't get the evaporation like you do in the oven)...
Stirable like half set concrete. But it tasted great!!!
Crockpot version:
100g pudding rice (I'll drop this to 75g next time). - 350cal (263cal for 75g)
500ml unsweetened almond milk. - 75cal
Fresh nutmeg (I used about a quarter). Negligible
1tsp vanilla extract. - 14cal
Sweetener to taste. I used 3tbs which is 18cal
Total: 457cal. (370g with 75g rice).
1, Heat the almond milk so it's steaming (in the microwave for 4 minutes). This is optional but will speed up cooking.
2, Add everything but the sweetener to the crockpot & cook for an hour on high. Stir and turn to low for 2 hours.
3, Sweeten to taste (some low calorie sweeteners lose their flavour if cooked, for long periods, so I tend to add them at the end if possible).
I ate half (with 100g of defrosted fruit, for an additional 55cal), but I'm greedy!
And I found it FAR too thick. I know I've mentioned that a lot. But it was ridiculous and not at all the "stirable" rice pudding I was promised! *grumble
If you're using a full size crockpot, I suspect you'll need to double the recipe.
Oven baked:
100g pudding rice. - 350cal
1l almond milk. - 150cal
Fresh nutmeg. - negligible
1tsp vanilla. - 14cal
4 tbs sweetener. - 24cal
Total: 538cal
Add everything to an oven safe dish and cook at 160C for 2 hours. The skin wasn't very browned, so I grilled for a further 20min. Which improved it a bit. But still not as brown as I would've liked (I suspect you need butter & sugar to create that colour).
Both versions made about the same quantity. Despite using double the almond milk in the baked version. But overall I preferred the flavour of the crockpot one, despite the texture.
