Did I ever mention I forget to update my blogs?

Sorry about that. I had a major sewing commission that I had to finish, and it sort of ate up a month of my time. I've been doing a lot of cooking over the last few weeks, which was nice, and I discovered all sorts of ways to occupy my stomach. (I also discovered that my normal caloric intake is even lower than I thought, so I'm trying to fix that. As in, my body thought it was starving to death because I kept forgetting to feed it. My cats, fortunately, fare better in that respect. They're downright chubby.) There's a particular rice dish that I got myself hooked on. It's technically a dessert, but, eh, I'll eat it for breakfast. As long as I'm getting calories, I'm good.

Take note: this dessert contains kidney beans. Seriously. Dark red kidney beans from a can. That's because I modeled it on some DELICIOUS Vietnamese desserts I've picked up at the Asian market more than once. In that region of the world, beans other than soy are dessert. They have sugar on them, and it works great. I promise.

Anyway. Here's the recipe.

Beans and Rice For Dessert

Enough water to fill a 2-qt pot
1/2 cup short-grain brown rice (yes, white will work, too--black might also, omnom)
1/2 15oz can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed
2 Thb sugar
1-2 Thb coconut milk powder (cheap at the Asian market) OR 1/3 cup coconut milk

Bring the water to a boil. Add rice, cover, drop temp to a simmer, and let boil for about 26 minutes. Add beans and boil another four minutes. Drain the rice quickly, return to pan, and clamp on lid to let it steam for 10 minutes. Remove lid, stir in sugar and coconut milk, and devour. This serves one.

I've also used sweet potato in place of the beans, and I'd like to try taro (again, see cheap Asian market), but the beans have an almost metallic flavor that's oddly meat-like against the rice and sugar. It's tasty as hell. I see you wrinkling your nose there, but I swear, it's good. Seriously.

And now I'm going to go and find some more calories. I'm having a hell of a time eating enough, even with a calorie tracker. I'm pretty much just doomed.

PS, I got my food stamps! YAY!!!! Now I can stop eyeing the container of breadcrumbs, wondering what it would take to make a sandwich out of them!