We can be terrible about leftovers in my house; purging the refrigerator results in a full bag of wasted food, which makes me feel like a bad person. So this morning I celebrated my first day off since early January by making rice pudding with leftover rice (of course), some ten-day-old egg whites and an egg past its use-by date, shredded coconut that should’ve been gone by Christmas, and horchata mix I’ve regretted since I bought it.

While it bakes I’m making coffee in my Bodum Santos, which I heartily recommend if you can find one - mine was $6 at a thrift store, almost like new. I’m not much for electric coffeemakers, but it’s a vacuum pot so it’s fun to watch, and it really makes a fine cup of coffee. Now to tackle the rest of the to-do list…

Coconut and Seven Spice Rice Pudding

Preheat the oven to 350 - this recipe will probably work on the stovetop, but I like baked rice pudding.

Soak 3/4 cup of shredded coconut and 1/4 cup of sugar (I used turbinado, but brown or white is fine) in 2 cups of milk.

Beat two eggs, or one whole egg and leftover whites, in a mixing bowl. Add the milk mixture and stir to combine.

Stir in two good pinches of kosher salt, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract, and your spices: I used five-spice powder (fennel seed, star anise, ginger, cloves and cinnamon) from the Asian market, bumped up the ginger and cinnamon, and added nutmeg and coriander.

Stir in 2 cups of cooked rice, and pour everything into a baking dish.

Plop a 2 Tbsp chunk of butter in the middle and bake covered for 20 minutes, then stir to incorporate the butter and break up any big clumps of rice.

Bake uncovered for another 15-20 minutes, or until it thickens up and forms a nice pudding-y skin on top.

despite how it might look, i have, in fact, done food-related things in the last… uh, three or four months. i’m just terrible at the internet. here’s the soup i made last night, though:

peel and chop three yams/sweet potatoes and a small delicata squash (acorn, butternut or pumpkin would work just as well). toss the chunks in a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and roast in a 350 degree oven. meanwhile, place a medium pot over low heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter, into which go a thinly sliced sweet onion, a few smashed cloves of garlic, half a peeled, cored and sliced granny smith apple, 4 or 5 chopped fresh sage leaves, salt, white pepper (or black, whatever you’ve got) and nutmeg. continue stirring until the onions turn translucent and golden, then deglaze the pan with a little white wine, bourbon, or applejack (which is what i used). add chicken or vegetable stock, and bring the heat up to a simmer.

when the yams and squash are fork-tender and browning up, add them to the pot, but don’t turn the oven off yet if you want to make some bacon to go on top of your soup - we prefer to bake our bacon on a rack set in a sheet pan, so all the fat drips off and it’s super-crispy. after simmering for a few minutes, turn off the heat and take the stick to it (by which i mean the immersion blender) until it’s smooth. if you don’t have a stick blender, i guess you could use a regular blender, but that just seems dangerous and messy. ours was about $17, and it’s proven to be a worthwhile investment.

ladle the soup into bowls, and top with a dollop of sour cream and some crumbled-up bacon. if you don’t do bacon, grated parmesan would probably be fine. or do both. that’s what i’ll probably do next time.

and i just noticed that this uses a lot of the same flavors as my last recipe post - tough. i love fall food. just you wait until i post about thanksgiving.

…i mean, it doesn’t really have to be, because there are still a lot of tomatoes in my garden that need to ripen, but we’ve been enjoying a little stretch of beautifully cool, breezy weather. to celebrate the impending change of seasons, i have been listening to depressing music (yes, that’s how i celebrate) and tonight i cooked this:

- thinly slice 1 granny smith apple, half a large bulb of fennel, and 1 vidalia onion.

- melt half a stick of butter in a large, high-sided frying pan over medium heat. add the plant matter.

- add a fat pinch or two of salt, a few good grinds of pepper (white if you’ve got it, black if not), a pinch of nutmeg, a sprinkle of dried thyme and 5-6 sage leaves, chopped very fine. dried sage would also probably work.

- cook, stirring occasionally, until things begin to caramelize.

- meanwhile, bring a pot of water to a boil and add a dozen (or more, that’s cool) pierogies. when they float, drain them.

- at this point, you can either brown the pierogies by themselves in the frying pan and add the other stuff back in, or just toss it all together and give it a good stir.

- serve topped with a dollop of good sour cream. not low-fat. we’re getting ready to hibernate.

sorry there are no pictures - after an extensive/expensive trip to the grocery store, i was too hungry to wait. besides, really good comfort food isn’t always attractive.