Lovin' Spoonful(s)

Some Saturday mornings call for something deliciously creamy and comforting to eat...

 

This Saturday morning was no exception. 

I was glad to find several recipes online for dairy-free rice pudding. 

(My tummy was glad, too.)

Here's the final version of the recipe I adapted from here. 

(I cut the recipe in half and replaced the water for almond milk.)

Dairy Free Coconut Rice Pudding

• 1/4 cup basmati rice (rinse)
• 1 cup light coconut milk
• 1 cup almond milk (or soy milk/rice milk/cow milk) 
• 3 Tablespoons sugar (I used brown sugar)
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• pinch of nutmeg 

1. Combine rice, coconut milk, almond milk and sugar in a saucepan.
2. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring often. 
3. Remove from heat and add cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, and the pinch of salt. 
4. Although you can eat the pudding right away, it tastes best when slightly warm or chilled.


Serves 2 or one extremely hungry bear
(Fills one soup bowl full of pudding)

Enjoy!

 

Co-Sleeping...

Feline Style...

Yes, my cat likes to sleep next to me at night. 

In fact, she decided that her body MUST be touching some part of my body. 

I'll often wake in the middle of the night to a cat snuggling inside the crook of my arm.

...Or paws batting my face.

Or a little tongue licking my cheek.

Cats have rough little tongues!

(If you look closely, you can see the tiny nick in my cat's ear. I've grown rather fond of that nick. It's how we tell her apart from her twin, too.)

Rain

We've received rain for two or three days this week, and now the soil is soft enough for weeding!

Good-bye, Geraniums. Good-bye, Dandelion.

I need to buy some rubber gardening clogs and knee pads...because I still have Oma Knees.

Jolly Week Fail

Well, E. ended up catching The Sickness on Saturday. Sniffles, fever, and the achies did not ruin her plans for a jolly week. They did however make thinking and functioning in general a bit more difficult. E. is very grateful not to be a full time student right now! 

Her suggestion for living with The Sickies: Avoid reading Dante's Inferno right before bed, especially if you have a fever. Fever dreams are weird enough, but fever dreams+Hell? (No wonder E. woke up in a cold sweat. Or was that just because she was sick? Maybe both.)

3 Days until Birthday!

Birthday Week!

A certain Birdy-Girl is having a birthday next Saturday, and this Birdy-Girl is just a teensy bit excited! Birthdays always call for Birthday Family Dinner(!), and Birthday Family Dinner always includes Birthday Dessert! This means Birdy-Girl gets to think about desserts for a whole week!

Well, not really. I think she already decided on what she will make. (Tiramisu, anyone?)

Anywho.

Since birthdays are a Jolly occasion, Hedgehog and Cheese has decided to celebrate Birthday Week by posting about something jolly or celebratory or splendidly lovely that happens each day. Little Bear is hoping that one of these jolly activities will be "Fixing Trousers". Poor Little Bear.

So here's to a very happy week!

*Also, happy birthday to Birdy-Girl's lovely sister, A., who will celebrate her birthday tomorrow! 

Inaugural Cake

Every celebration calls for cake. And The First Post deserves a celebration.

So how do you begin a new blog?

Why, by making cake!

(Of course.)

HannaBee's purse dialed my number on her tellyphone (don't ask me how). What an intuitive purse! I answered the call, and after a few seconds of "Hulloooo? Halllooo! Han? Halloo Han?", Han realized that I, (sad for me), was not the voice of God calling from the bushes. Nevertheless, she answered her phone, and we made plans for afternoon cake making.

~*~*~*~

I found a recipe for a delicious Lemon Almond Cake on this very lovely blog.

The situation could not have been more perfect. There were leftover blanched almonds in the pantry, my lemon tree in the yard, and plenty of butter. You always should have plenty of butter on hand. (Just not in your stomach.)

I put H.B. to work.

Zesting,

         Zesting,

                 Zesting!

What did I do?

Sang. Made messes. Cleaned. Made more messes. Sang some more. 

For anyone planning to make this cake, I highly recommend playing the Julie Andrews channel on Pandora while overseeing cake-assembly. Plus, you can zest in time with Chim-Chiminey!

~*~*~*~

We soon had a lovely sticky batter. 

 

And fifty minutes plus three strategically placed pokes later...

Out came our cake!

(Poor cake. It looks like it had a sad surgery!)
Pokes aside, it was a perfectly delicious cake. Moist, dense, not too sweet or overpoweringly almondish, but a wee bit tangy from the honey-lemon glaze that we spread on top.

~*~*~*~

There are no pictures of the glazed cake, mostly because we were impatient and demanded to EAT CAKE NOW.

So we ate cake and drank milk out of little bowls, just like kittens do. Except kittens shouldn't eat cake. Fishcake, perhaps?

It was a very happy Monday afternoon!