Recipe: Coconut rice pudding

There are times when I think I'd do quite well on Top Chef, simply for the fact that I'm a G when it comes to turning a seemingly empty pantry into treasure trove of edible goodness. Friday night was one of those moments. My sweet tooth was itching, bad. So I whipped up some Southeast Asian inspired rice pudding post haste. This simple dessert has the power to transport me straight back to Thailand, where my daily meals consisted of som tam (spicy papaya salad) and mango sticky rice 99% of the time.

For this recipe, I played it safe with skim milks. Of course, if you're feeling ultra indulgent you can use full cream and whole coconut milk, but sometimes it's good to exhibit some restraint, eh? Here's how it's done.

Ingredients:

2 cups cooked jasmine rice, cooled

1 1/4 cup light coconut milk

3/4 cup 1% milk

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp cinnamon

sliced bananas and mangos for garnish

Combine all these lovely ingredients in a saucepan and simmer over low heat for about 20 minutes. Make sure to stir it so the pudding doesn't caramelize (or burn!) on the bottom of the pan.  Spoon it out into small bowls -- like the ones above that my friend Alex got me from Anthropologie for my birthday -- and top with small slices of banana, mango, or toasted desiccated coconut if you've got it. This is a thick pudding that will make four small servings, or two if you're a coconut freak like me.