Vietnamese Stirfry and Rice Pudding

I have been cooking the last few months, but primarily old standbys plus a few recipes from cookbooks I uncharacteristically do not modify much (like lamb biryani).

This week I made an uninspired by decent improvised curry (the chicken was there and had to be used), salmon pasta salad (canned salmon, plain yogurt, mayo, mustard, Worchestershire sauce, and pasta, mixed to taste; vegetables optional), a simplified version of Barbara Fisher’s Lemongrass Beef (my first attempt at Vietnamese food), and rice pudding.

The rice pudding began as jasmine rice that someone-who-shall-remain-nameless (not me) cooked with 3 cups water to 1 cup rice. There were perhaps 3-4 cups of cooked rice. After it dried out to a kind of mushy consistency three or so days later, I put it back on the stove, added some amount of soy milk (“enough”), 1/4 c. sugar, 1 tsp. vanilla, some saffron dissolved in warm water, and cinnamon and cardamom to taste, and cooked it until it resembled rice pudding.

It’s pretty good, as rice pudding goes. I dislike wasting food (even food as cheap as rice), so I’m glad I salvaged it.

Here’s hoping I’ll have more time to experiment the next few months–I have a couple new Spanish cookbooks, a paella cookbook, a Vietnamese cookbook, and the goal of learning to make cheesecake.

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