Our First Road Recipe: Asian Rice & Mung Bean Pudding!

Well, we’ve been on the road a month now and we’re finally posting our first recipe! Its taken some experimenting, and some failures, but we’ve started making some pretty darn tasty food on the side of the road! 

Our most important cooking tool has been a big thermos. Backpackers, boaters, and other adventurers have been “cooking” in thermoses for a while now, and we decided to try it out on this trip. The idea is that you put grains like rice or quinoa into the thermos with boiling water and leave it for five to eight hours while it slowly cooks. That way you can do all of your cooking in the morning, and have a hot meal at the end of a long day.

We’re still working out the kinks of the technique—some grains are fussier than others, but we made a spectacular sticky rice and mung bean pudding with coconut milk which made a great breakfast. The can from the coconut milk became our measuring cup, so everything is measured by cans!

Asian Rice Pudding

One 13.5 oz. can of coconut milk

13.5 oz. water (use the coconut milk can to measure!)

Half a can of sticky rice

Half a can of mung beans (found in asian food stores)

One big dollop of honey

Add-ins like dried fruit, spices, chopped nuts. . .be creative

This recipe cooks for 12 hours! This means preparing the pudding in the evening and having it for breakfast the next day. Thermos cooking requires some forethought!

To maximize the cooking power of a thermos, it needs to be pre-heated by pouring boiling water into the thermos and letting it sit, closed tightly, for ten minutes. This is key to cooking the grains fully.

Combine coconut milk and water in a small pot and bring to a boil. Empty the thermos of the pre-heating water and pour coconut milk & water mixture into the thermos. Add the rice and mung beans and put the lid on quickly. Shake the thermos to combine everything and pack it away.

Forget about your thermos for 12 hours. Crack it open and you’ll have creamy, coconut-scented rice and mung beans just waiting for some honey for sweetness and perhaps even a little cinnamon and sliced banana. . .