Horchata

I make it a practice to NOT drink my calories, unless the drink is an actual meal, like a smoothie for breakfast. I generally require my liquid calories to provide me with a pretty big amount of nutrition in order to make drinking calories worth it in the first place.  Note that I said generally.  From time to time I'll have a cocktail or a glass of wine, and every now and then, I get hit by a stray, random, and really rather strange craving.  I swear I have more cravings now than I ever did when I was pregnant!  Anyway, yesterday was one of those times.

I woke up really wanting some horchata.  My ex-mother-in-law used to make a mean horchata, and they sell a decent enough version at a local Mexican hole in the wall restaurant.  Since I don't have access to the ex-MIL, and I'm pretty sure Allende isn't open at 6:30 in the morning, I decided to see if I could make it myself, so I turned to Doctor Google for help.  I found a plethora of recipes, and the grand majority of them included milk as a main ingredient.  In my experience authentic horchata is an agua fresca, and milk totally defeats the purpose of drinking it in the first place, so I did what I always do.  I pieced together several different recipes and made my own.

Horchata

Ingredients:

• 2 cups white rice
• 6 cups cold water, divided
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup raw cane sugar (in the name of all that is good, please don't use that processed white crap!)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Soak the rice over night in the refrigerator in 3 cups of water.
2. Next morning add rice, soaking water, and cinnamon to the blender and blend the crap out of it.  Blend until it's as smooth as your blender can possibly make it.  Then blend it some more.
3. Strain into a pitcher through a fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth.  There should be no sediment in the liquid.  I strained mine through a fine mesh strainer lined with two layers of cheesecloth and still got a tiny bit of sediment.  I was so impatient, I drank it anyway, and boy was it ever good.  However, if you've got more patience than I do, I would suggest straining it more than once.
4. Stir in the remaining 3 cups of water, sugar, and vanilla.  Because raw cane sugar doesn't dissolve as well as the evil white kind, you need to stir like mad.  In fact, I suggest putting it into a pitcher with a lid so you can shake the heck out of it.  Not only does it give you yummy authentic horchata, it gives your biceps a good workout as well!
5. Serve over ice with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.

Enjoy!