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A long-known comfort food. We have hearkened back to memories of childhood when desserts were homemade and not full of so many of the non-food ‘stuff’ they now contain.
Organic Tapioca is the basis for this pudding. I searched through many recipe books and came to the conclusion that organic tapioca is a necessary – well maybe I also started out with a bias. However, I came to the conclusion that the tapioca should be organic because of the overwhelming number of recipes which call for cornstarch as the thickening agent in this dish.
At first, I couldn’t understand why one would need a thickening agent in a dish whose core ingredient is itself a thickening agent. Tapicoa is used in many sweet and savory dishes as a thickening agent and it works very well without changing the taste of the dish. I realized why all of these recipe’s contained corn starch when we bought several kinds of Tapioca from Organic to overly processed with a coating of talc to make it look whiter and more matte. The corn starch was necessary because in the processing of tapioca, which is not organic, it loses its thickening properties.
The white matte-looking tapioca was incredible. It was so overly processed that using it made no sense ! – Why was it coated with talc, especially since much of the talc was seen floating in the water or milk that we used to test the tapioca. It was floating in the liquid but it was incorporating itself into the tapioca pudding so we would be eating tapioca and talc. That meant to us its use was purely aesthetic. An aesthetic that gave us a stomach ache since talc is rumored, and in some experiments has shown itself to be a carcinogen. At least that is what we have read. Why especially would you use this kind of overprocessed and staged tapioca in a dish you feed mostly to young children and those longing for their many-years past childhood?
For those of you who don’t know its genesis, tapioca is extracted from the cassava. It is a staple in many areas of the world and is used as a thickening agent in foods. It is gluten-free.
If you have a difficult time finding organic tapioca we suggest you try www.frontiercoop.com and have it mailed to you. It is worth the trouble.
We started with:
——— a small light under 3 cups organic milk in a glass pot.
——— as bubbles formed around the edges of the milk we added 1/2 cup organic tapioca
——— and stirred and stirred making sure nothing was sticking to the pan.
——————-We also added a small amount of himalayan salt to the pan and continued to stir.
———when the milk mixture looked as though it was about to boil we added 1/2 cup sugar
——————-and stirred and stirred and stirred , especially since we did not want the mixture to boil over!!!!!!!
==================We broke two eggs into a mixing bowl and whipped the eggs until they became lighter in color and texture.
==================We added a little of the milk mixture to the eggs very gradually so as to bring the temperature of the eggs up to the
==================temperature of the milk mixture and then added the eggs to the milk mixture
———and stirred and stirred and stirred somemore!!
We continued stirring until the mixture looked like a very good and thick pudding!
We added liquid organic vanilla to the mixture, took it off the heat and stirred until the vanilla was incorporated.
We then poured the mixture into four beautiful stem glasses for serving and put the pudding into the refrigerator.
———If you want more than servings for four – simply double or triple the ingredients!
We let the pudding sit in the refrigerator for about 15 minutes because we like warm, but neither hot nor cold pudding!
When we served this organic tapioca pudding it was excellent and fulfilled every one of our childhood memories.
And when we went to bed that night we stirred and stirred and then stirred the already eaten pudding some more!!
Once you’ve satisfied your longings for tapioca and your childhood you can then add all kind of extra ingredients to create memories for your children unique to their upbringing, but turning back a little to your own:
—————–raisins – coconut – soft nuts or nuts you have crushed – chocolate chips – grated ginger – cinnamon – nutmeg – orange juice –
and the list goes on…………………………
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Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, Comfort Food, food shopping, Frontier Co-op, Making Connections, Organic Tapioca, Recipe, Tapioca Pudding
