Tiny Treats

Budino di Riso al Forno con i Goji & Fette di Pera

Oven-Baked Rice Pudding with Goji Berries & Pear

Mid-afternoon on a Sunday and being the sensible sort, no cake, cookies or other sweeties in the house... and I feel like a treat... hell, I deserve a treat! All I want is a nice mug of coffee and some little reward for having made it through another week in one piece... is that too much to ask?!?

Of course the answer is no- as you can plainly see. And it may only be a tiny little portion, but this yummy rice-pudding was made in just half an hour or so and did the trick, passed the test with flying colors- and put a little smile back on my face! Contrary to popular belief- it doesn't take much to do so!

In fact, all that it took in this case was a cupful of rice and 2 cups of milk! I started the milk boiling with a little cinnamon, vanilla and Stevia for sweetness, then added the rice and reduced the heat to a low simmer for the next 10 minutes. In that time, I did the rest of the prep work- and turned the oven on, ready to finish things off once everything was put together.

So- the next thing I did was to peel and cut the pear into quarters. I found a good way to do this was to eat half of the pear whilst slicing the other- haha! In other words, a half of a pear goes a long way in the recipe. I put the pear slices with a little cinnamon, into a shallow pan, with a little water and let them simmer and soften for 5 minutes... and whilst that was going on, I added a handful of Goji berries to the rice and stirred them in. By now the rice had absorbed the milk and was creamy and thick and delicious- so the next step was to pout it into my little ramekin ready to be finished off in the oven!

I laid a few pear slices decoratively on top of the rice and popped it into the oven at the highest setting for 5 minutes. By then it was bubbling away like crazy, so I took it out and turned on the broiler, added a light drizzle of honey to the pear slices and popped it back inside to brown for 2-3 minutes... finished!

And yes- it WAS so yummy that I burned my lips by hurrying up to eat it too much! So be warned- because you will like it every bit as much as I did!