Strawberry Pineapple Rice Pudding

I have never had rice pudding. My husband loves it. We were in the grocery store the other day and he was eyeing it. I was going to pick it up for him but he said “No, I was just thinking you could make it. It would taste better than that packaged stuff.” Hmm, well after a compliment like that it had me thinking. A few days later a friend came over with a couple of cookbooks, in there was a rice pudding recipe! Well, I made some notes on how it was done and made a variation of mine as a surprise for him for our weekend brunch ritual. I think he was very pleased, he ate a very large bowl of it. Hehe. I think this will definitely see more variations in the future.

• 2 cups skim milk
• 1/2 cup uncooked sushi rice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup brown sugar unpacked or splenda
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup strawberries, sliced
• 1 1/2 cup pineapple crushed canned
• 1 3/4 cup water approximately

1. Drain the juice from the canned pineapple into a measuring cup. Top up the juice with the water until it measures 1 3/4 cup.
2. Combine 1 cup milk, the juice mixture, rice, and salt in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and cover. Simmer for 30 minutes.
3. Stir in the remaining milk, sugar, and almond extract. Cover the saucepan and return to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally until it is creamy, about 25 minutes.
4. Remove from the heat. Stir in the strawberries and pineapple, allow to stand for 5 minutes.  Serve, or serve later!

This is great warm, room temperature or even cold…if it lasts long enough to get that cold. Makes four servings. Each serving with sugar contains 168 calories, .4 grams of fat and 1.7 grams of fibre. Each serving with splenda contains 133 calories, .4 grams of fat, and 1.7 grams of fibre. Not that big a difference really. I think in this case go for the brown sugar!