Vietnamese Dessert Pudding with White Beans and Sticky Rice in Coconut Milk

It seems like I’m not the only one who has got a food blogger’s block, judging by the last post of The Sophisticated Gourmet (who despite having a food blogger’s block, has cooked some New York-style bagels that look more than appetizing). I suppose it has something to do with my lack of time (and creativity). School is absorbing all my time and energy like a sponge! So it’s logical: if I don’t cook anything blog-worthy, how can I write a good post?

Today’s recipe is  Che Dau Trang and, and it iss my contribution to the october’s Tried&Tasted, the blog event created by Zlamushka. This month the featured blog is Wandering Chopsticks (what a lovely name!), and the hostess is Trupti of Trupti’s Food Corner.  Wandering Chopsticks is a food blog specialized in Vietnamese dishes, although there is plenty of non-Asian dishes too. Among the dozens (or maybe hundreds? The recipe index is vast!) of recipes, I decided to try this, the Vietnamese Dessert Pudding with White Beans and Sticky Rice in Coconut Milk, or Che Dau Trang (Ok. I think I will follow calling it just rice& beans dessert pudding)

Vietnamese Dessert Pudding with White Beans and Sticky Rice in Coconut Milk I won’t copy the recipe here again: you can get it here. Actually, I cooked this many weeks ago….and now I regret it. Why? Because I bought coconut milk for the first time in my life a week ago. And I don’t know why I haven’t done it before because I loved it! Taking advantage of my visit to Barcelona, I stopped by the Asian supermarket and bought a couple of cartons of coconut milk. I have drunk my morning coffee (I think I am becoming a caffeine addict) with coconut milk since then. It adds a delicate and slightly creamy touch that I love. Why I am talking about that now? Because my coconut milk pudding…was without coconut milk. Yeah, I cooked it with soy milk, and I would not recommend you doing the same. It tastes great anyway (I ate the full pot in two days), but it will curdle. So if you have coconut milk, use it. I have also used brown rice instead of glutinous rice. I don’t know if glutinous brown rice exists, but I have only seen white glutinous rice. Because I try to avoid anything refined, I opted for the brown variety. I reduced the amount of sugar. The original recipe called for ½ cup, but I added only 2 tbsp, and it was enough for me. The verdict: I sincerely liked the dish, even with soy milk and with non-glutinous rice. I suppose you can eat it like a dessert, but I think it would be a wonderful breakfast. Actually, this was the way I ate it. It is an easy and tasty way to combine grains and beans in the same dish (and get complete protein) without resorting to the typical rice and lentils combo.

I love this photo :) It was taken during the party we did in the beach to say goodbye to Summer and Summer holidays. I have not posted it until today because although we began school a month ago, the weather has been abnormally hot during all September and part of October, so nobody had the feeling that it was fall….until a couple of days ago. I was freezing yestarday while waitng for the bust! So, see you next year, summer :) Me with two of my friends (I'm the one in the middle)