This recipe is an original that I was contracted to create for the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
My mom has always had a knack for taking simple, inexpensive ingredients and creating recipes out of them that made us feel like we were eating better than royalty. As in most things, this magical trait went unnoticed as I was growing up. But as I raise my own children, I can see it truly took something more than pixie dust to feed us so well.
I grew up in West Texas, cotton fields surrounding our little neighborhood and always a slight tinge of brown in the wind. While most are fast to criticize that aspect of my hometown, I always find a little comfort in the dust, in the rows and rows of cotton bowing beneath a West Texas sunset (or sunrise for that matter), and even in the slight smell of a far-off feed lot if the wind was blowing from the East. I grew up the daughter of a college professor and a middle-school science teacher, but I was always aware of the way agriculture affected us.
These days I look back at the first 23 years of my life and recall evenings filled with fried chicken, rice (in lieu of potatoes) and gravy, and some kind of greens. The following morning we would always have leftover rice in my mom’s version of breakfast rice pudding. At the time, I always thought it was slightly strange, but from where I sit now it was pretty exciting to have a mom who would let us eat dessert for breakfast. Turns out it was not only a delicious treat but a filling way to nourish us using ingredients that grew in our state.
In celebration of the abundance of rice (and subsequently the abundance of rice pudding) we ate growing up, I wanted to take some of my favorite flavors and turn breakfast into something sort of magical. While I think that special mom magic is something earned as the years go by, I look forward to the day many years from now when our children look back and see the love we have for them and the way we show it through our kitchen.
Want the recipe? Of course you do – head over here to get it!
Oh I definitely need to get this recipe!
I love rice pudding! I haven’t had any in a long time, I will have to try this out! 🙂
I agree with Domi’s comment up there about the narratives in your posts. I <3 'em. 🙂
Yum! This looks so tasty!!! AND your photos are gorgeous!!! 🙂
Thank you so much girl! I have to say it was really yummy 🙂
Thanks for sharing that story about your childhood! It was a joy to read and appreciate. Rice pudding is one of my all-time favorite comfort foods, and I 100% stand behind having it for breakfast 🙂
TOTALLY breakfast, right?! Next up: chocolate cake 🙂
I have some blueberries in my fridge right now and this sounds like the perfect way to use them up! YUMM!!
YES! DO IT!
Mmm, rice pudding is such good comfort food! My mom is from Guam, so we always had a full rice cooker when I was growing up…and rice pudding was a traditional dessert. I’ll have to try your spin on it. 🙂
On another note, I love the narratives you’re weaving in lately. Your writing has grown a lot and it makes me want to come back just for that, even if there were no recipes. Good work, friend!
Girl, you have NO idea how uplifting this comment was for me! I am trying to work on writing more from the heart and sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it clicks! THANK YOU!
Mom magic! LOVE that…I think all of us mommies are striving for that!
Oh yes. I don’t think we’ll ever realize we had it til our kiddos ask us to do things that we did 20 years ago… 🙂
Your pictures are absolutely stunning in here, Heather!! This looks delicious!
Thank you Liz! I just felt so inspired – those earthy colors are my jam!
I loved seeing your post on the Taste blog this week! Fantastic to see other Arkie residents doing awesome stuff.
Thanks girl! It’s really such an honor to work with them!
I so loved reading about your West Texas childhood! 🙂
We just spent some time in Arkansas (as you know), and I never got tired of looking at the rice fields. Gorgeous. And delicious!
Oh West Texas. I miss it! My parents are living in Austin now, which I love, but it makes me sad that it may be a very long time before I see those cotton fields again. I need to make a pilgrimage!