Got Milk? How About Arroz Con Leche?

I came across this cool event hosted by Linda over at Make Life Sweeter for World Breastfeeding Week. The event is called Got Milk? and you get to make any sweet dish you want as long as it has milk as an ingredient. Linda wanted to do this blog event to promote breastfeeding and I wanted to participate because I personally believe breastfeeding is important. If you are curious about the benefits of breastfeeding, I can send you the 15-page paper I wrote last Fall for my Infant & Toddler Development course :)

As soon as I saw the information for this event, I immediately knew what I was going to try to make. I say "try" because what I was going to do was try to replicate one of my mom's recipes. I called the woman up to ask for the recipe and, like any good recipe that has been in the family for decades, there are no measured amounts. I was told that to make the sweet dessert, Arroz con Leche (rice with milk), all I needed was rice, milk, butter, and condensed milk. Ok. Thanks mom! What was cool about this conversation was hearing my mom's history with this dish. When she was a little girl in Colombia she used to use Arroz con Leche as payment for getting out of household chores; she would give up her cup of Arroz con Leche to one of her siblings in exchange for a chance to sleep in during the week (she would wake up at 4:30am to get the homemade breakfast of arepas ready). She then told me about how thankful she is to live in the US because she can make Arroz con Leche whenever she wants and sleep in at the same time.

This dish came out great. Not exactly like my mom's but almost like it. I think the next time I am in Miami I am going to have her make it and I'm going to record it so that I can see every little thing that she does.

Arroz con Leche
Source: My Mom
Makes enough for 3-4 servings.

3 cups whole milk
1 Tbsp butter
1 cup of rice (I used long-grain)
1/2-3/4 cup sweet condensed milk

Combine the milk, butter and rice in a medium-sized saucepan. Bring the milk to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer. Stir constantly so that the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pan. Once the rice is tender and has soaked up most of the milk (if the rice still isn't tender, add more milk 1/2 cup at a time), add the condensed milk 1/4 cup at a time until it reaches the desired sweetness. Serve immediately and enjoy!

Note: you can add raisins or queso blanco (like my mom does sometimes) and you can top it with cinnamon.

Rice being cooked.

All served and ready to eat.

Closeup of goodness.