Rice Pudding

The wonderful smell of vanilla and cinnamon will fill your home as these spices slowly cook in your crock pot creating a most comforting, delicious pudding for your Thanksgiving dessert.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups scalded milk
2 1/2 cups cooked rice
3 eggs, beaten
2/3 cups white or brown sugar
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons vanilla
1/2 cup raisins
3 Tablespoons soft butter

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients.

2. Lightly grease the sides of the crock pot, then pour everything into crock pot.

3. Cook on high 1 to 2 hours, stirring after a half hour.

The Christmas pudding tradition

Puddings range from sweet to savory, with a texture varying from soft to moderately hard. It can take the form of porridges, flans, custards, tarts and dumplings. The pudding is a thick and soft dessert, typically containing flour, milk, eggs, a flavoring and sweetener.

Christmas puddings originated as a fourteenth century 'porridge' called frumenty. They were made of cereal, breadcrumbs, mutton and beef with raisins, wines, prunes, currants and spices. they were stuffed in sausage skins, enclosed in a pastry and baked. It was eaten as a fasting dish before the Chrismas festivities.

By 1595, the frumenty was replaced by a plum pudding with eggs, breadcrumds, dried fruits and flavoured with spirits and ale. It became the Christmas desserts but it was banned in 1664 by the Puritans.George I re-established it as part of Christmas in 1714. By Victorian times, the Christmas puddings became similar to the ones enjoyed today. Today, puddings serve as a dessert as in chocolate pudding or as a main dish, such as corn pudding. It's a dessert in Britain. Some puddings are universally popular (bread and rice puddings) and are made with regional variations.
Many superstitions have surrounded the Christmas Pudding:

#   The traditional time for making a Christmas pudding is on Stir Up Sunday which is the 25th Sunday after Trinity (Catholicism).
  
# Is should be made with 13 ingredients to represent the Christ and His Disciples.
  
# It should always be stirred with a wooden spoon from east to west in honor to the Three Kings.
  
# Every member of the family should take a turn at stirring while making a wish.
 
# In Dutch and Flemish Christian folklore it is believed that rice porridge is the meal given to people who go to heaven, and it is eaten out of a bowl with a golden spoon.