Everyone's Favorite Rice Pudding

“Each time our family travels to Chicago, we sample rice pudding. We have tried to break this habit, but we are too weak. We simply step into a deli and the next thing you know we are dipping plastic spoons like professional rice pudding taste testers. It always turns out that our favorite puddings are the baked ones. This is one of those faves.”

Ingredients

4 cups whole milk

¾ cup sugar

¼ cup long grain rice

2 teaspoons of vanilla

1 teaspoon of lemon extract

pinch of salt

Ground cinnamon

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300. Lightly butter a 2 quart casserole dish. In a separate bowl, combine all ingredients until well mixed. Pour into casserole dish. Sprinkle generously with cinnamon. Set casserole dish inside larger casserole dish. Fill the larger casserole dish with water so that water comes about 1/3 of the way up onto the smaller casserole dish. Bake for approximately 3 hours; or slightly longer, stirring occasionally. Serve warm or chilled. enJOY! Remember the good old days? Like ten years ago? When kids didn't have "earbuds" attached to IPODS tuning us out in the backseat of the car? We had to compromise -- listen to the same music; all of us at the same time. Woah -- those were the days. When my daughter was little she loved Raffi. We must have sang "Apples and Bananas" and ba-no-no's, a million times. Well -- this recipe is a yes-yes! It is apple and banana bread pudding made with cinnamon rolls! Can it get any better than this? Sure can -- it is topped with melted vanilla ice-cream. Yep! Melted!