This is what I'm eating right now - well, I suppose technically this picture is from last week, but I am eating rice pudding from the same recipe in the same bowl with whipped cream and sugar cinnamon on top so I consider it close enough to not bother taking a new picture - it's so creamy and good. I like it best still warm but it's good cold too (and pretty awesome for breakfast).

I used the Creamy Rice Pudding recipe from The All New Purity Cook Book (2001 reprint). This is one of my favourite cookbooks. It's got my stand-by regular bread recipe and  the best tiny thimble cookies you could imagine. There are a bunch of other puddings (I really want to try the Lemon Fluff) and cakes and cookies as well as main course dishes, sandwiches and preserve recipes (and tips of cooking for large groups and parties). It's one of those books that doesn't really have any pictures (and none of them are in colour) but that's okay because you don't really need them anyway.


I searched around on the internet and found a wide variety of rice pudding recipes but none quite like this. It's basically a custard with cooked rice in it. The colour comes from the eggs I used (very yellow yolks).


We like to add about half a cup of raisins and I used some of our fancy Mexican vanilla (brought back by a friend a few years ago and much stronger and more caramelly than regular vanilla).


Creamy Rice Pudding
from The All New Purity Cook Book (2001 reprint of the original 1967 publication)

Combine in top of double boiler
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 cup milk
2 slightly-beaten eggs
1/3 cup sugar
Cook over simmering water, stirring constantly, until mixture coats a metal spoon.
Remove from heat.
Add
1 tablespoon butter or margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup raisins, currents or chopped dates
Pour into serving bowl and allow to stand, without stirring, for 30 minutes.
Serve warm or chilled, with cream.
Yield: 5 to 6 servings.


My pot has quite a heavy bottom so I tend to skip the double boiler part and just use a slightly lower temperature and watch it like a hawk. When they say "stirring constantly" they are not kidding. If you walk away from this for any length of time weird things will happen.

I plan to try the chopped dates sometime

I'm a little late posting this time. Sunday night was spent tying a quilt and Monday figuring out the math for a new bag. I'll show the the first as soon as it's done and the second if it works.



In the North in the winter sunshine means cold weather and, if you're lucky, a sun dog. This is the most incredible sun dog I have ever seen. It was even more fantastic in person. The office building in the background is only a block away; I've never see one of the bright spots appear so close.

My dad came by while I was taking this and told me I looked like a tourist :)


More winter sunshine but this time inside our house and making my stack of blankets look extra cozy.


We got a rice cooker. It's so cool.


Most of my job is sitting at a desk but every once in a while I get to use some of my outside-of-work skills to help out on projects at the museum. Today it was sewing a new cover for a mock fur bale for an educational exhibit.


My sleepy Amaryllis finally woke up.


... and is growing quickly.


Tea and knitting. Two of my favourite things for a Sunday afternoon.

I kind of like sorting through my patterns periodically. I tend to forget what I've got. Going through everything reminds me of projects I'd intended to make and lets me weed out things I know I'll never use. When I was going through my box on Friday I realized that I've got a nice little collection of vintage patterns. Most of them are from my mum's sewing room, several have written notes and a few of them have stories.



Two skirt patterns: Vogue 8969 and McCall's 5470. The McCall's pattern has a note to my sister on it:

Jane,
I think I used this one and just made it full length.

I'm so curious to know what skirt it was my sister was trying to replicate. I can only remember one full length skirt of my mum's but it wasn't this style. The pattern for the t-shirt in the illustration is also in the envelope - I've had a knit t-shirt pattern all this time and didn't know about it.


Two Butterick dress patterns: 5187 and 3660. I had smaller versions of both of these outfits when I was little. The skirt for 3660 is pretty nifty and I always thought the pockets were great. The hooded dress in 5187 looks like it would fit right into one of my Japanese craft books.


An awesome coat pattern: Butterick 5101. I really need a new rain coat and love those big pockets. I've been thinking of making this up with some of Anna Maria Horner's Oil Cloth.


I can't remember exactly why I've got this pattern. I think I'd intended to use it to make a Hallowe'en costume once. This is the pattern for my mum's wedding dress: Vogue Paris Original # 1077. At $6.60 this pattern is almost five times as expensive as any of the others. It's got some nice little notes on the back circling my mum's size (and making sure she'd bought the correct sized pattern) and noting some alterations she wanted to make. There is also a note about the circumference of the smaller layer of the veil: 316". My mum embroidered motifs of blue hearts all the way around the edge of that veil. I don't know how many there are but I do remember her once telling me that they took fifteen minutes each and she carried that veil all over the place to get them all done.


Stretch & Sew 1567 purchased from Stretch & Sew Fabrics on Dunbar Street in Vancouver according to the stamp on the envelope. There is a note on this to shorten it by 1" - 1 1/2" that I think is in my grandmother's handwriting. I like the middle dress the best and think it would be a good addition to my wardrobe this summer. The pattern looks pretty simple but requires some "Perky Bond Plus" which makes me laugh.


Another skirt pattern discovered in a different box: Vogue's Basic Design 1297. I don't think this pattern was ever cut. I especially like the orange skirt on the end but it might be mostly her hat.


A Hallowe'en costume: Simplicity 9579. There is a picture of my parents in these costumes - faces painted and everything; when I was little I couldn't tell them apart except that my dad was taller. A note on the back says my mum got 14 pom-poms out of 114 g skein of worsted yarn.


This pattern wasn't in either of the boxes but I knew I had it somewhere and hunted around until it turned up (down the side of my yarn storage system). Vogue Patterns 8822: this is the first pattern I ever made. I used a teal quilting cotton with gold stars on it that made it look remarkably like pajamas when it was done. Mum guided me along on her machine and I remember convincing her to do most of the top stitching because the thread kept breaking on me. I'd love to make this again in a soft linen or shot cotton. Another great hat on this one.