Slow Cooked Tapioca

When I was a little girl growing up in the Boston Mountains (the southern part of the Ozarks...located in Arkansas) one of my favorite childhood memories was of warm tapioca pudding.

We hillbillies are people of simple comforts. Don't worry. I'm not going to get all "walked uphill both ways to my bus stop/had to catch my dinner out of the crik" on you.

We would come home from church on a Sunday afternoon. My dad pastored a little country church (actually when you live that far out in the sticks everything is country). Mom worked at the local county hospital every other Sunday. Dad would be in charge of lunch. Which generally meant hot dogs, ramen and warm tapioca pudding.

Dad knew how to follow the recipe on the back of the Minute Tapioca box. We would finish our lunch and then settle down in front of the TV for a Sunday Afternoon Movie Matinee before heading back to church that night.

We only got 2 channels. But what magic those 2 channels held! I can remember Sunday Afternoon movies like Sinbad the Sailor and the original Clash of the Titans. We hillbillies are also eclectic people.

I still love tapioca pudding. And the other day while browsing through some recipes for dessert to take to Bible Study I found this little gem. Slow Cooked Tapioca Pudding.

Of course, I had to modify it. I have to do sugar free. And I added a little bit of this and that to make it special.

The ingredients are milk, small pearl tapioca (located in the jar), salt (located in the other jar), eggs, vanilla, nutmeg and sugar (I used Splenda). 

 My parents have chickens. Chickens lay eggs. Maybe you knew that. However, you need to know that if you ever cook with farm fresh eggs you need to crack your eggs individually into a bowl before adding them to your recipe. Especially if there is a rooster involved. Just a little bit of experiencing talking there.

I wanted to be sure that my tapioca would be tapioca and not something resembling an egg casserole, so I whisked the eggs, sugar and milk together.

I whisked only 1/2 of my milk into my eggs and sugar. I find it easier to whisk up in smaller amounts.I added the rest of the milk a few steps later.

Added a little vanilla.

And a little salt. I can't tell you how much salt. Just a little. Girlfriend needs some lotion!

No. This isn't Josiah's funky rock collection. Though we really don't grow rocks that look like this around here. This is whole nutmeg.

I put one in the electric grinder. You totally don't have to use whole nutmeg ground in an electric grinder. Use what you have.

But then you would miss this. Pushing the button with your freaky double jointed finger. Oh, that's my freaky double jointed finger!

Isn't that cool?

I put the nutmeg in the mixture. I didn't grind the whole nutmeg. That would be a lot of nutmeg, friends!

I put the egg mixture into the crockpot, added the rest of the milk and the tapioca pearls. We really need to take up a collection. This is my mom's crockpot. It's seen a lot of slow cooking.

3 hours (on high) later I had comforting, warm Tapioca pudding. I just stirred the pudding every once in a while during those 3 hours.

 It was yummy! The only thing was I couldn't talk The Studly Muffin into changing the channel to something more fitting Tapioca Pudding. Can you believe the man has never seen Sinbad the Sailor?

Here is the recipe, plus my changes. I actually made a double recipe in the pictures above.

The measurements below are the right amounts to serve about 8. 

4 cups of milk
2/3 cups of sugar
1/2 cup of small pearl tapioca
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1/4 tsp. nutmeg (I'm estimating here. You can also use cinnamon...that would be yummy)
a pinch of salt

Whisk 1/2 the milk, sugar and eggs together. Add salt, nutmeg and vanilla. Poor mixture into crockpot. Add the remaining milk and tapioca. Cook on high for 3 hours, stirring occasionally with your whisk.

Enjoy!