Fabric Makes Me Hungry

A few months ago I went on a road trip with my friend Lisa, a fellow fabric lover.  We travelled to Pennsuaken, NJ to check out J&O Fabrics . It’s located in a building right on Rte 130.  They sell a mixture of cotton quilting fabrics and garment type fabrics.  They have tons of novelty fabrics.  Anything that you could possibly think of.  They have Beatles fabric, every sports team you could think of, games of chance, Dick and Jane, medical themed, food, animals.  I could go on and on.  But of course my favorite fabrics were the Alexander Henry Mexican themed fabric.  I had never seen them before.  I think I must have bought some of each.  And each one was more entertaining than the next.

As I enter my house after fabric shopping, I always drop my fabric off in the laundry room.  While the fabric was in the washing machine, I headed to the kitchen to look for my recipe for Arroz con Leche from my cooking lessons at the hotel where we stayed, Mesones Sacristia in Pueblea.  The fabric made me hungry fro Mexican food. I could always go for something sweet.

When we went to the market in Puebla, I bought real cinnamon

and Mexican vanilla.  Their vanilla is water-based and the entire bottle cost me 50 cents. I store it in the refrigerator and understand it’s got a pretty short shelf life.

To make rice pudding, boil 1 cup of short grain rice in 4 cups of water with whole cinnamon until the liquid is reduced.  Add 2 cups of milk, 1 can of sweetened condensed milk and 2 TBSP of vanilla.

Cook for 25 minutes or until the rice turns soft.  Let stand for a minute.

Serve warm (my preference- especially since I don’t have to wait) or cold in a dish sprinkled with cinnamon.

YUM!