Valentine's Day Dessert ~ Creamy Rice Pudding

Hello dear ones!
I pray you each had a special Valentine's Day!  I spent mine with my sweetie and I wanted to share our simple but entirely yummy dessert with you.  I had to work with what I had on hand and also the lack of an oven at the moment which crimps my style as I love to bake... but such is life, right?  And there is a reason that they say that necessity is the MOTHER of invention....it's because women/mothers/wives are always coming up with ways to "make do". 

Or is it just me? 

Nah....I didn't think so :) 

In these lean economic times, it's also something we have to do more and more.  We've never been a "keeping up with the Jones" kinda of family and being a homeschooling/one income family over the years, we've always tried to be frugal but now, even though the kiddos are gone and it's just hubby and me,  we HAVE to be frugal. 

So back to the yummy rice pudding...

Here's the recipe:

1 cup long grain rice
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
7 cups of milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 Tbsp lemon zest
1/2 tsp salt
1 Vanilla bean split (I used 1 1/2 tsp of reg. vanilla)

Bring 4 cups of water to a boil, Stir in rice and powdered sugar and cook 5 minutes.  Stir occasionally so it doesn't stick.  Drain off the water.  Stir in milk, sugar, lemon zest, salt, and vanilla.  Bring to a boil over medium high heat, then reduce to low and simmer for 45 minutes.  Stir occasionally.  It should thicken up nicely.  Remove vanilla bean if you used it and place in glass bowls or whatever you choose.   Cover and chill several hours. 

Okay now my improvisations:  I didn't have lemons on hand so I skipped those and went to the pantry.  I had a quart of peaches I canned so I drained off most of the juice from that.  As I measured out the milk, instead of 7 cups, I did 6 cups and added peaches to it to measure 7 cups, squishing the peaches in my hand as I took them out of the quart jar.  This was also why I didn't drain off all the the peach juice...I wanted them juicy.  :)  You could use berries or whatever fruit you'd like... I'm always looking to see what I have and deciding then.   One of my favorite pies happened this way.  It was supposed to be a raspberry sour cream pie and of course, I had no raspberries but plenty of blueberries.  It is heavenly!  I don't like plain blueberry pie...but with the slightly sweetened sour cream...oh it's bliss! 

That's a picture of hubby & me on our wedding day :)

Whatever you did yesterday, I pray you felt the perfect love of your Heavenly Father, who loves you with an everlasting love.

Romans 5:8 But God commendeth His love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. 1John 4:10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1John 4:11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. 1John 4:19 We love Him, because He first loved us.  John 15:12 This is My commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

John 15:13 Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Aren't you glad that The Lover of your soul, Jesus Christ, loved you so much that He laid down His life for YOU?  

May you be blessed in Him,

~ Kimberly 

Paper Rose Heart Wreath Tutorial

Greetings Friends! 
It's SNOWING and since it hasn't stopped yet, I decided to get crafty for Valentine's Day tomorrow, but first here are a few pics from out my front door.  

Okay, now to crafting!   This is my first tutorial so please forgive me if it's terrible.

I made this sad little ripped rag wreath several weeks ago when I put away Christmas decorations.  I am currently making a pastel colored yo yo quilt and the colors reminded me of the little heart candy you get on Valentine's Day that says "Be Mine" and other such sweet sayings so that got me to thinking....  I took a wire hanger, bent it into a heart shape and started knotting the different strips of the pastel material around it.  Then, because it was still ugly, I cut out some felt hearts and sewed them together with a zigzag stitch and glued a few on....I hung it up but I didn't like it.   It was still ugly.

Hubby didn't like it either :( 

I finally took it down and decided to be a Valentine's Day Grinch....but like most other resolutions I make, it didn't stick.    Everybody in Blogland is decorating and making beautiful things, so I gave it another shot.  I couldn't help myself!

First thing, I found a cardboard box and cut it into a heart shape like so.

Then I spray painted it RED.... I love red :)  It doesn't have to be totally covered because you will be covering it with rosettes but you just want to make sure if a space does peek through here or there, you're not looking at a barcode or something. 

It was time to start making curled paper roses.  Instead of smaller book page roses, I used a Bible word search book to make the roses.  It's the size of a child's coloring book.  I almost put it in the "To the Thrift Store" box but something held me back, hehehe.   Here I used a purple marker to show you the spiral but you wouldn't use that normally (it would show up on your roses).  The spiral does not need to be perfect. Cut around and leave a little round "tail" to cap the bottom with once you put your hot glue on it.  (It still burns btw, be careful.)

Here's it all cut out.

 You can then start rolling it up from the OUTSIDE edge first.  And you want it to be tighter at the beginning.

You can see here how it starts to look.  Don't worry, you will get the hang of it. 

Once you roll the entire thing up, I kinda let it unravel a bit to give some fullness to your rose.  Some though, you might want to keep tighter, like a rose bud...play with it, have fun.  It's all up to you... After all, if you're doing this...It's YOUR rose wreath, right?  Own it...Love it!

Here's how it looks with a few glued on.  When you cut out the spirals you also want to make some smaller, some larger.  On others, I cut the pages in half and then squared it up before making even smaller spirals so I have roses of different sizes.  Some have fatter "petals" because I made my spiral thickness fatter...

Here she is all filled up!  

I wanted a red rose heart wreath, so I got out my trusty can of spray paint and lightly sprayed the roses, being careful to coat the sides all around pretty well.  I still wanted to see the lettering...you may not want to so you could paint it heavier or use construction paper...that would work too. 

So I could hang her up, I glued some raffia to the back.

Here she is.... I'm pleased.  This was easy and the best part, CHEAP ...I mean, inexpensive :) 

Of course, now I have to clean up my floor! 

And one more snow pic.  I took Sophie outside with me earlier but she was VERY uncooperative for pictures.  She HATES the snow.  Of course, with legs only 3 inches high, anything other than a dusting is too deep for her!  She ran back to the door and wouldn't budge until I opened it.  I think she's even more cold natured than I am! 

Many Blessings ~ Much Love

Kimberly