Rice Pudding

Poor little L has had such a bad cold, and the runs to go with it. The doctor prescribed him a liquid electrolyte diet for the next 24 hours (that was last night). That means no milk and no solids (banana is apparently okay), just this awful-tasting stuff that is supposedly blackcurrant flavoured. Even cough medicine tastes better. L rejected it at first, but this morning it must have dawned on him that that was all he was getting. He quaffed 200 ml down in no time. Then we watched Thomas the Tank Engine (08:26) and then he started rubbing his eyes around 09:00. Normally, he wouldn't want to sleep until around 10:30. Of course, the illness is sapping his energy. But could I be starving him unnecessarily? Is this really how to treat the runs? I feel like his life force is dwindling, as if he were wasting away before my eyes. My son could typically be described as a Tasmanian Devil-type character. Yet today, even when he was playing in the living room, he put his head down on a cushion several times, as if his head was again too heavy for his neck.

Knowing he would be off this liquid diet tonight, I wanted to make him something special that wouldn't irritate his tummy. So I tried to make rice pudding. We had an unopened bag of Tesco pudding rice in the cupboard. I mixed 50 g of it with the specified amounts of milk and sugar, and sprinkled nutmeg on top. Then I saw the baking time -- 2 to 3 hours! What kind of rice takes that long to cook?? I set the oven timer to 2 hours, wincing at how much energy this bit of rice was going to use. There are people starving in South Asia who would probably kill for this rice, who probably know how to cook it using a pot, a bit of water and an open fire, and here I am using a million kilojoules to bake 50 g in milk and sugar.

Well, needless to say, I justified this use of energy by claiming it for my energy-less son. I hope he can stomach it.