Rice pudding

Dinner – or as the English people call it, 'supper' – at home is usually technically a 3-course meal. First is the salad bowl and bread basket, or sometimes soup, followed by the 'main course' which sometimes comes in two parts, then the dessert – or, again, as the English have named it, 'pudding' – which can vary from melon to trifle to eclairs.

Rice pudding was one of the first few 'puddings' I had when I came to London. Ever since moving to a new country I was determined to be courageous with my food. (Just last night I had mint choc chip ice cream which I usually hate, because it tastes like toothpaste. But now I don't hate it -- I just dislike it.)

I'm glad Mrs C makes rice pudding because I am absolutely in love with it. When she doesn't make rice pudding, I get this from Tesco:

What? My table, messy? No...

Müller sells yogurt and rice pudding in supermarkets here. The rice pudding comes in several flavours: original, strawberry, apple strudel and vanilla custard. You can have it hot or cold – rice pudding is supposedly a hot dessert but it's fine cold as well.

This isn't the most good-looking picture of rice pudding around, I admit. The brown stuff is Nutella – I heated up the rice pudding in the microwave before adding a blob of Nutella into it which softened and added a nice flavour to the dessert. Mind you, this is acceptable because the original flavour is simply plain rice pudding with a hint of vanilla. The other ones have their flavourings at the bottom of the pot – strawberry sauce, vanilla custard and apple strudel – which makes the whole thing taste heavenly after stirring.

If you haven't had English rice pudding, to try to find some way to get hold of it.