smitten kitchen

Almost without fail, January — which is always too cold, too dull, and too overdue for an antidote for holiday excess — puts me in the mood for rice pudding and this year was no different. I played around with it all month. I made my standard. I made a “creamiest” version I found online that landed me with an undercooked eggy puddle and a wobbly belly. I made a baked version that never came together. And I caved to my husband’s repeated request for chocolate rice pudding which is something you will never see on this site because it was, hands down, the most revolting looking dish I’ve yet to ladle into a bowl. (I added 3 ounces of bittersweet chocolate added to my old favorite, and nixed the almond. See? Now I’ve saved myself a photography challenge!)

But it took me until February got me daydreaming of warmer climates to figure out what I’d really been looking for: arroz con leche. Now, here’s the thing — I did it wrong. I mean, it’s inevitable that it will seem wrong to someone who grew up eating it. There are as many versions of arroz con leche as there are Spanish-speaking grandmas who stir it up, and rarely are two versions alike. That’s the best part.

Continued after the jump »

This all started simply: It’s January. I don’t believe in giving up anything one enjoys but I know, I know, that only minutes past Resolution Day isn’t the best time to bring up gloppy sticky buns, 7-layer cakes, gluttonous rubber band wrists and other thoughts that have been plaguing me nonstop. I’m not trying to spread the distraction, you know? So I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to show you how easy it is to make really good vanilla pudding at home.

Pudding is one of those things that if you like to eat it, you should know how to make it. The home-cooked stuff couldn’t have less in common flavor-wise with that plastic-cupped horror show they brought me in the hospital post-baby. Real pudding takes only a little time to make, and if you do it my way (the old-school way, I like to think) there are no egg yolks or creams or custards or pats of butter. It practically runs on the treadmill for you, don’t you think?

Continued after the jump »

Of all the things I had anticipated about being a new mama — the sleep deprivation, the fact that sometimes babies cry for no reason, whatsoever, that they look ridiculously cute things that are too big on them — at least one of the things that I hadn’t considered was, well, the Itch. The one you get at the end of your nose nearly the second after you start feeding the baby and have not a finger free to scratch it.

It’s not always an itch, though. Sometimes it’s a just a bit of water that you need — just a sip! from that glass just two feet in front of you! Oh, how you would do anything for that sip of water! But a lot of times these days, it’s a recipe. I can’t help it. I have so little time to cook and yet these recipe ideas are getting louder and louder in my head… winter salads and tangy pies and buttery leeks and funky salsas and I have more dishes than I could cook in two hundred nap times, it seems, nonetheless in the 15 minutes of a single one that is left after I have both scratched my nose and taken that sweet, sweet sip of water.

Continued after the jump »

A lot of times, a recipe comes with a story, and if you’re even luckier, it’s a good one. There are dishes that remind you of something your mama used to cook and unforgettable meals at far-flung restaurants that demand recreating in your own kitchen and fresh stuff that looked so pretty at the market, you had to come home and have your way with it.

This is not any of those times. I don’t have a good story about why I had to make a chocolate pudding pie this weekend or why you should before your weekend is done and gone, and I at first felt bad about this until I realized that at 37 weeks and 4 days pregnant not that anyone is counting or anything one does not need a good reason to make chocolate pudding pie — they are the definition of one. Because did you read the part about the chocolate? And pudding? And pie? I did. I saw those three words together on Gourmet.com last week and had I been craving chocolate pudding before then? No. Did I know I was fixing for some pie? Nope. Did I have a good reason to make it? Well, not exactly, but I promise you, if you make chocolate pudding pie, the people will come.

Continued after the jump »

All I wanted to give you for Valentine’s Day was some chocolate pudding. My logic was simple: decadent meals and rich desserts are dreamy things but, in my mind, not inherently romantic. More often than not, after such an evening I find myself too full for even a nightcap, quite tired and, while we are being honest, like I need to spend an hour on the treadmill. And I hate the treadmill.

But chocolate pudding is none of these things. The perfect recipe–the one I sifted through dozens and dozens to find–would be chocolaty but not overly heavy, indulgent but not too rich. In short, the kind of thing you’d want to eat with the love of your life without the risk of shortening the length of it. As a bonus, it would be a reasonable recipe to tackle on a weekday night.

Continued after the jump »