The BRAT Diet

"Bananas, rice, apples, toast," said Anne, our nurse down at the Women's College family clinic. The diet of choice for the discriminating fluxy child. Gets potassium and other nutrients back into the kid, as well as being, shall we say, beneficial for the digestion and the bowels.

(Look, I don't really like talking about poo. As foul-mouthed as I've always been, my swears and humour have never been very scatalogical. So this has been a bizarre aspect of becoming a parent for me: talking about shit. All the time. With descriptions. And it's worse when he's sick.

Yucky. Swash.)

Anyway, I've been trying to come up with interesting and tasty ways to get the BRAT into the brat. Especially since, for most meals, I eat exactly what he eats. For conveniance sake, but also because if I'm eating something else, the Dude assumes that whatever I've got must be better, and won't take a bite of his lovingly prepared baby food.

This was breakfast this morning. It was pretty damned good.

BRATty Rice Pudding

2 cups (or thereabouts) cooked basmati rice
soymilk
1 pink lady apple, peeled and cored
cinnamon
treacly brown sugar/maple syrup

Put the rice in a saucepan with just enough soymilk to cover it, and bring to a simmer. Add a tablespoon of sugar, and a teaspoonful of cinnamon. Take the pudding off the heat, and dish it out.Grate the apple, (I use my mini Kitchenaid hand blender attatchment) and either stir it into the rice pudding (for kids) or pile it on top. (Very fancy looking for the Fella and I.) Drizzle a little maple syrup on top of it all.

You could probably add some raisins or dried apricots at the beginning if you like that sort of thing. Personally, I'm aesthetically opposed to rehydrated fruit.

About the "two cups of cooked rice" that will make frequent appearances in my recipes: I always make two meals worth of rice at a time, so if we have curry one night, I can make rice pudding, or a grain salad, or add it to soup the next day. My beloved rice-cooking pot (Which really deserves a post of it's own) makes about four cups of rice altogether, so half of that will go in the fridge at the end of the night. And we're eating SO MUCH rice these days because of the BRAT mandate. Wheaty goodness will resume once the Dude is well.