The Care and Feeding of Climbers: A Woman's Guide to Raising Monkey-like Sapiens

So this was my third post for Yankee-Belle Cafe... the first was a "Welcome" post... then pie crust because all o' youse and all y'all know what I think about store-bought pie crust so the first thing I had to do-- I WAS COMPELLED-- was show you how easy it is to make pie crust with a great recipe.

Far easier than keeping climbers alive. :)

Now, I'm a climber. I was up trees, scaling fences, on roofs... at age four a Flower City Park neighbor called my mother and wanted to know if I was supposed to be on the porch roof... :)

I still climb although I leave the third story of our heritage farmhouse to others, the first and second stories are fair game... And I did buy a Little Giant ladder last summer, and that thing is the best!!! I love it so much! 

But raising baby climbers can be a dauntless task! Look at these three on the new (then) shed! Taylor, Kyle and Casey, all grown up now, so they SURVIVED!!!!) And yes there were a great many things I did not share with parents... Better that they simply smile and nod. So below is the original post... and then a food post that followed. 

Life is more than food!


Here are three of the monsters I've helped raise.  Taylor, Kyle and Casey.


They're brats, yes. I mean WHAT ARE THEY DOING ON THE ROOF???

It starts here. In the kitchen. On the table.

This is 'Lijah. He is 18 months old.

WHAT IS HE DOING ON THE TABLE????


Oy vay. Who is watching these children????


Oops. No one!  ;)

Well, when a case of NEW BOOKS COMES IN,
WHO DOESN'T WANT TO JUMP ONTO
THE KITCHEN TABLE AND CHECK THEM OUT???
Especially with a cute hero like Matt Cavanaugh...

Oh my stars.Raising climbers...  The best thing to do is teach them how to FALL WITHOUT DYING.


Because they already know how to climb.

See, they start out like this. Now this looks nice, doesn't it?
Grandpa holding baby at a wedding.
Peaceful. Serene.
And then it morphs to THIS:

 On the roof.
In the dark. 
Because Emma wanted to be CLOSER to the moon.
So her Daddy took her up there because he's a climber.
And climbers beget climbers.
It's quite Biblical, don't you think?


So really, you can feed climbers anything.
Mostly they like chips and dip.
But who doesn't?

The point here is that it's okay to talk about lots of things in a cafe.
Up to and including dealing with children who are born with a death wish.

Sigh.



PAGE BREAK! This is funny because Blogger wasn't cooperating at all as I copied and pasted these... so this is an early post on Rice Pudding because my rice pudding is one of those awesome things that gets requested at pot lucks (remember when we could get together like normal folks?) and there was a great pic of it but it is missing... I'm going to go hunt for it right now! And I found a pic of current climbers! The Mighty Finn (notice the bucket which is how they send up supplies into the tree, quite ingenious!) And Morgan pulling herself up down below. There were two bird nests in this tree, nice and high, and no one got their faces pecked off, so that was good! :) 

AND THE RICE PUDDING!!!!!!

AND HERE IS THE ORIGINAL RICE PUDDING POST FROM 2011.

Rice pudding is famous.

Almost every culture has a form of sweet rice.

Sweet rice and custard????

Oh my stars, better yet!

I worked in a Greek Family restaurant for eleven years. They made Greek rice pudding...

It was good, but this way is better. I'm going to go out on a limb and say WAY BETTER.

But try it. Taste test. You be the judge.

Baked rice puddings can get dry. Pithy. 

YUCK.

Greek rice puddings lack depth of flavor. They're tasty and sweet, but it's basically rice and milk and sugar, slow simmered.

Ummm.... Not so much. 

But this????

Oh. This is GOOD STUFF!

This recipe is a mix of my old fashioned custard recipe from the Cream Corn Starch box, circa 1970-something. An older neighbor told me about it and I was always looking for great basic recipes. Why re-invent the wheel?

So this basic vanilla pudding rocks. It's done in about 10 minutes (including cooking time)

has no chemical or weird aftertaste and I use it as a filling for fancy cakes...

Boston Cream Pie

Cannolis

Cream puffs

And the base for rice pudding:

Here's the original recipe:

1/4 cup Butter (one-half stick)

1/2 cup Cream Corn Starch

1  1/2 Cups Sugar

4 Cups Milk

4 Egg Yolks

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt butter in 3 quart saucepan. Remove from heat for a minute. Just long enough to add the sugar/corn starch mixture and not burn anything. Mix sugar and cornstarch in bowl. Add to butter.

Add in milk and egg yolks.
(the whites can be used for meringue kisses... or scrambled egg whites... or white cake...)

Whisk until combined.

Cook over medium to medium high heat (only if you STAND THERE AND STIR. Do not do what I do and think you can fold a load of laundry or check e-mails. Trust me. You cannot.)

If you mess up the above step and burn it, sigh...

I do that often. Then I realize I am not Super Mom or a Magic Fairy and pudding should be stirred.

So then I stand there and stir the next batch while reading a great ROMANCE NOVEL like this one:

See, then the time passes quickly. 

We Yanks are a strange breed. Yes. I know.

Okay, so stir until thick and mixture just comes to a boil.

Remove from heat, add vanilla.

DONE!!!!!

So there you have it, the base, the bottom line, the delicious, creamy custardy goodness.

Now:

Add cooked rice.

I use Basmati rice because I love the texture, but you can use any normal rice. Typically rice can be cooked like this:

4 cups water (I do measure this)

1 tablespoon salt (No, I don't measure, I just dump)

2 cups rice (this I measure)

Splash of olive oil

Bring water to a boil. Add in salt, oil and rice. Bring back to a boil. Cover lightly, reduce heat to simmer for twenty minutes. Turn off heat.

Now this is how I make rice all the time. And it works great. The hint of salt in the rice is AWESOME in the pudding.

Mix rice with custard. Put in bowl. Sprinkle with nutmeg.

Enjoy.

Award-winning, multi-published author Ruth Logan Herne loves God, her country (she bleeds red white and blue... and Yankee blue in particular!)... her family, and she's particularly in love with kids because they keep her-- and her mindset-- young! Email Ruthy at loganherne@gmail.com. Visit her website ruthloganherne.com and/or visit her on Facebook.