Mrrzy -- HA HA HA HA!

We ate the last of the Christmas pud last night (Little Christmas), and it was absolutely terrific with vanilla ice-cream. I may never make hard sauce again.

It is time to sing the praises of our electronic pressure-cooker, the Instant Pot. It is large and lumpy and takes up way too much space in the kitchen, but it earns its keep by reliably cooking brown rice, wild rice, beans, stock, and -- of all things -- Christmas pudding and other suet-assisted desserts that otherwise have to steam for hours and hours. I can set it up, turn it on and WALK AWAY, even go to bed or leave the house, and when I return to the kitchen nothing has exploded and the contents are perfectly cooked.

My most recent achievement is a pilaff of brown and wild rice that I made last night to go with roast pheasant (from a game farm; we don't know anybody who shoots them). When we had picked the bones of the pheasant -- at just under two pounds, it was a satisfying meal for two and no more -- the wreckage went into the Pot with a couple of carrots and a couple of onions, and in the morning we had a Pot full of pheasant stock. The rest of the brown-and-wild-rice pilaff made an excellent snack.

Wild rice is a thing around here, harvested and sold by the Anishnabe First Nation. It's amazing when combined with brown rice, but a bit astringent all by itself.