Rice Pudding with Bourbon-Soaked Apricots

As I mentioned in my previous post, we had some friends and family over last weekend to celebrate Graham completing is PhD.   To make it easier on ourselves, we decided to order Indian food for the party.  The Indian food was a huge hit and our guests ate up most of the main entrees.   What they did not eat up, or what we had too much of from the start, was the rice!

The restaurant that we ordered from was very generous with the rice and gave us two very large trays.  During the party we ate through almost two-thirds of the first tray, but didn’t touch the second tray.   As a result, Graham and I have more rice in our kitchen than we know what to do with.  We’ve eaten it for several meals, frozen some, and now I am trying to think of creative recipes for using up those remaining grains.

One of the first recipes that I thought of to use up some of the rice was rice pudding.  I have fond memories of eating rice pudding as a kid and it is super-easy to make.   Instead of making more traditional rice pudding with milk and cream and raisins, I decided to use a mixture of almond milk and coconut milk as the base and then jazzed it up with some dried apricots soaked in bourbon.  We definitely enjoyed this twist on rice pudding, but still find ourselves up to our ears in rice.  So if you have any ideas for what to do with cooked rice, please send them our way!

Rice Pudding with Bourbon Soaked Apricots

The bourbon flavor was pretty subtle in this dessert, so if you want to go sans alcohol, it can easily be left out.   With the dried fruit and sugar, this dessert was also a little on the sweet side.  Next time I might cut down the sugar to 1/3 cup.   Lastly, the pudding was not super-thick when I removed it from the heat, but after some time in the fridge, the pudding became pretty thick and creamy.

• 2 cups cooked basmati rice
• 2 cups almond milk
• 1 can lite coconut milk (15 ounces)
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• ½ cup bourbon
• ½ diced dried apricots

Combine the cooked rice and almond milk in a large pot.  Bring the mixture to a boil and cook for about 5 minutes or until the mixture has thickened.  Stir in the coconut milk and sugar and cook for another 5-10 minutes or until the mixture has thickened again.

While the pudding is cooking, warm the bourbon in the microwave for about 30 seconds or so.  Add the diced apricots to the warm bourbon and allow them to soak for several minutes.  When the apricots have soaked up some of the bourbon and have begun to soften, drain off any remaining bourbon (at this point you’ll have some tasty apricot infused bourbon) and set aside apricots.

When the pudding has thickened, remove it from the heat and stir in the vanilla and the bourbon soaked apricots.  Serve the pudding either warm or cold.

Tasty Easy Healthy Green Recipe Ratings: