Lavender Rice Pudding with Raspberries

angelofthenorth requested this recipe (back in August!). See if you can spot the modifications for my dodgy internal organs. :-)

* Exported from MasterCook *

Lavender Rice Pudding with Raspberries

Recipe By :Didi Emmons
Serving Size : 3 Preparation Time :0:00
Categories : Rice Pudding

Amount Measure Ingredient -- Preparation Method
-------- ------------ --------------------------------
1 litre lactose-free milk
3/4 teaspoon dried lavender
1 3 inch strip lemon rind
1/3 cup uncooked Doongara or basmati rice
1/3 cup Splenda
1 punnet fresh raspberries

1. In a medium heavy-bottom saucepan, heat the milk with the lavender and
lemon rind. When the milk starts to simmer, add the rice. Turn the heat to
low, and stir a bit. Cook the mixture, uncovered for 2 hours over very low
heat, stirring at least three times an hour. Add the sugar 10 minutes
before the cooking is done.

2. Stir well, and remove the pieces of lemon rind. Transfer the pudding to
a bowl, and chill it for at least 2 hours, uncovered. Fold in the berries
just before serving the pudding, adding a little milk if the pudding is
too thick.

Source:
"Vegetarian Planet (adapted)"

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Per Serving (excluding unknown items): 2 Calories; trace Fat (3.4%
calories from fat); trace Protein; trace Carbohydrate; trace Dietary
Fiber; 0mg Cholesterol; trace Sodium. Exchanges: 0 Fruit.


Nutr. Assoc. : 0 0 0 0 0 0

(no subject)

More tsunami info from the SMH, including travel info and the hotline for Australians in affected areas: Who to call, what to do and whom to donate to.

Reproductive Freedom

In Australia, the Catholic Church plans to start a counselling and support service for women facing unwanted pregnancies, in an effort to lower the abortion rate. The aim is to provide "emotional and practical" support to pregnant women in order to persuade them not to terminate the pregnancy. They've also formed a pro-life lobby group.

It's absolutely appropriate for the Church to support pregnant women; a woman who would like to keep the child but lacks the resources to raise it is also denied choice. However, they'd better be prepared to keep on supporting them after the birth. And will women be given accurate information about the medical and psychological aspects of abortion? I doubt it.

I particularly doubt it because the Church has also formed a pro-life lobby group, the head of which, law lecturer Rachael Patterson, is already talking nonsense: "Pretending that 100,000 or so abortions is fine doesn't do women any favours. Nor does asserting that abortion doesn't have any negative repercussions for women." The former is Minister Abbot's thoroughly discredited figure. The overall message is simply a strawman. (Some feminists are even asking why pro-choicers spend so much time explaining we don't like abortion.)

Patterson says, "...we are not about criminalising women." I don't believe her. Nor do I believe the aim of the support service is really to improve women's choices. This is the velvet glove, donned after the iron fist was loudly rejected by Australians.
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The Australian Democrats point out the lack of education about emergency contraception, now available in Australia - although many women still don't know about it! No records are being kept of how many pharmacies are providing the "morning after pill" or how many women are using it. Norway's teenage abortion rate is about a sixth of Australia's - thanks to good sex education and access to services.
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A recent posting (from the strikingly named Respectful of Otters) about Keeping Teenagers out of Clinics. Texas now requires parental consent for girls under 18 to obtain prescription contraceptives. If a person 17 or under seeks reproductive health services, the health providers must report them to the police, unless their partner is within 3 years of their age.

A Texas study predicts this cost the public health system over $43 million a year, with increases in pregnancies, births, abortions, and STDs. The posting all points to studies which found that almost half of teenagers would avoid reproductive health services if their parents would be notified - while just 1% would stop having sex. In short, as a bullying tactic to prevent teens fucking, parental notification is an expensive failure. No pro-lifer should support it, let alone anyone else.
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A cheeky and clever tactic by reproductive health clinics in the US: sponsor a protester. The clinic counts the number of anti-choice protesters, and you make a donation (from a quarter to a dollar) for each of them!

(no subject)

I'm desperate. Suggest some planet names. Anything less stupid than "the Planet of Frogs" (which I have actually just stuck in chapter three) goes.

Speaking of chapter three of Strange Flesh, I've just finished the bastard. Now I have to backtrack and do chapter two (different narrator, so it made sense to skip it at first). Four or five thousand words and the submission prose is done; that will just leave rewrites and banging the synopsis into readable shape, and I'm ready to fling the thing at my agent.