Breakfast Rice

Sometimes necessity is the mother of deliciousness. Last week, caught up in Thanksgiving lists and plans, we forgot to buy fruit and bread for breakfast, and we also forgot to make granola. One morning we woke up with virtually nothing to eat.

As we never, ever, skip breakfast, this posed a challenge.

Foraging through our overloaded pre-Thanksgiving refrigerator, we found that we had leftover brown rice and soy milk, and we remembered a dish we used to make, from the undelicious-sounding but very good Ayurvedic Cookbook, by Amadea Morningstar. You simply simmer cooked white or brown rice with an equal amount of milk, along with a shake of cinnamon and a handful of raisins, for a delicate-tasting and surprisingly hearty breakfast dish. If you start with leftover rice, the whole process takes about five minutes—just long enough for the rice to absorb some hot milk and for the raisins to plump up.

We've said it before, but this experience reinforced our conviction: never, ever, throw out leftover rice.