Coconut-Mango Rice Pudding

When I saw this recipe for coconut rice pudding, I had to make it immediately. That night. After a long day of work. I've always liked rice pudding but only made it once before. I looked at the recipe and saw that with a few alterations, I had all the ingredients at home and wouldn't have to run to the grocery store. The recipe called for forbidden black rice, which in the picture, looked a little scary. I decided I could substitute good old jasmine rice. The recipe also called for kiwi, which I don't really like and didn't have in my refrigerator, so I left that out. This pudding was delicious warm and chilled in the refrigerator!

Here's the recipe:
(Slightly changed; original recipe from Whole Foods Market).

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups water
1 1/4 cups uncooked jasmine rice
1 14 oz. can regular or light coconut milk (I used light coconut milk from Trader Joe's)
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup chopped mango (I used frozen mango from Whole Foods and chopped it into smaller pieces)
Unsweetened shredded coconut

Put water and rice into a medium pot, cover with lid and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer until all of the water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. Uncover and stir in coconut milk and sugar. Bring pot back to a simmer and cook, uncovered, for 5-10 minutes more. Stir in chopped mango. Top with unsweetened shredded coconut.

Enjoy!

BAKED Sunday Mornings: Cowboy Cookies

This week's recipe is for cowboy cookies! I have to say that I've always been a fan of chocolate chip cookies that add in all different kinds of fun flavors. So it was surprising to me that I wasn't a huge fan of the compost cookies from Momofuku Milk Bar. But anyway, I was excited to make these cookies when I saw that crushed pretzels were one of the ingredients! I love salty & sweet together. This recipe also called for espresso powder and oats, in addition to chocolate chunks. I used chocolate chips because that's what I had. I probably should have left out the espresso powder because I'm not a huge fan of coffee flavor, but everyone else who tried these cookies loved them! I brought them to work and my co-workers gobbled them up. Even my mom liked these cookies and she usually doesn't like many sweets.

These cookies were really easy to make. As usual, I made a half batch. One difference was that they called for cool butter instead of room temperature butter. This was easy for me because I usually don't leave enough time for my butter to come to room temperature anyway when I'm baking. The recipe also called for chilling the dough for 4 hours in the refrigerator but I have to confess I got impatient and only chilled them for an hour and a half. I don't know how much of a difference that made though. These are a nice and easy cookie to make and the somewhat unusual combination of ingredients is something that most people enjoyed!

To see the recipe and how everyone else's cookies came out, head on over to Baked Sunday Mornings.

Enjoy!

BAKED Sunday Mornings: Tomato Soup Cupcakes

Wow, when I saw that this week's recipe was for tomato soup cupcakes, I didn't know what to think. Tomato soup, in a cupcake? I love my cupcakes, but I wasn't sure about this one. I've made cupcakes w/bacon before (not on the blog) and those came out well, so I figured that a cupcake with an unusual ingredient could have a chance at being tasty.

These cupcakes were really easy to make with my stand mixer. I made these cupcakes in a mini-cupcake pan and I also made 1/4 the recipe because I didn't know what I'd do with 2 dozen cupcakes. As it was, 1/4 the recipe made 16 mini cupcakes. Since I made mini cupcakes, I baked them for about 16 minutes. The frosting was also super easy to put together and I went for a rustic look by using my offset spatula to frost the cupcakes. The cupcakes are a very light red and you can't really taste the tomato soup part of it. It really tastes just like a spice cupcake, and I was pleasantly surprised!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there!

To find the recipe and read how everyone else's cupcakes turned out, head on over to Baked Sunday Mornings. Enjoy!