Comfort Foods

Oh hey Monday.

I’m sitting here chugging a huge mug of coconut green tea. Over the weekend I developed a sore throat along with an annoying nagging cough, and truth be told I’m feeling a bit like that obnoxious coworker who’s too stingy to take PTO and go home sick.

You know what I ate for breakfast?

Pudding.

WHAT. Cold pudding is the perfect breakfast for a sore throat. Rice pudding to be specific. Brown rice pudding with chia seeds to be exact. Comfort food with a boost of nutrition.

Rice and Chia Pudding

1/2 cup uncooked instant brown rice

4 cups milk (I used 1%)

½ cup white sugar

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon chia seeds

Hint- dig out your 4-cup Pyrex measuring bowl if you have one.

Cook rice according to package directions.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine milk and sugar. Stir fairly often in order to prevent milk from scorching on the bottom of the pan.

Sneak away to whisk your 4 eggs in your Pyrex or another bowl.

When milk starts to boil, pour ~1/4 cup into your eggs and stir. This is called “tempering” the eggs. If you were to add the eggs to the milk mixture, the heat of the milk would instantly scramble them. Gradually warming up the eggs prevents this. Stir in another ¼ cup milk into the eggs, and continue this until you’ve added about half the milk mixture. Go ahead and then pour the egg mixture into your milk saucepan. Put back on medium heat and stir until this boils. It will begin to thicken at this point.

Remove from heat and stir in vanilla, rice, and chia seeds.

Pour into individual ramekins, or one large bowl if you’d like. Refrigerate overnight. The chia seeds will further thicken the pudding, so don’t be worried if it seems too liquidy when you’re pouring it. Not only do the chia seeds act as a thickener, but they also give the pudding a boost of omega-3 fatty acids (AKA heart healthy fats) as well as some fiber. Brown rice also helps in the fiber department.

Makes 8 servings of 2/3rds cups. Per serving: 175 calories, 4 g fat, 8 g protein, 28 g carbs.

If you fake a sore throat as an excuse to make this, I won’t tell. *Cough cough*