Pista-chia pudding

Have you heard of chia pudding? I hadn't, until sometime early last year when I read a diary online, in which the vegetarian (or mostly) author ate chia pudding every day for breakfast. By the third day, I was like, "What the heck is chia pudding?"

Chia seeds, I knew. Chia seeds are the magic behind Chia Pets, which were something of a fad when I was very young. Later on in my life, when the populace got bored of making tacky home decor out of chia seeds, they started using them for eating. Chia seeds experienced a big boom in popularity while I was working at the organic market, so I became somewhat familiar with their properties.  They are oft touted as a superfood fit to provide every kind of health benefit under the sun, but I never really saw enough worthy qualities to make an effort to work them into my diet.

Until I learned about chia pudding, that is. Once I realized that chia seeds can form the basis for a satisfying vegetarian breakfast, I was intrigued. A quick search yielded hundreds of recipes. It was overwhelming, but I quickly learned that the basis of a chia pudding is nothing more than chia seeds and non-dairy milk. You mean, chia pudding will help me get rid of the multitude of expired soy milk cartons in the back of my pantry? Sign me up!

And so, I hopped on the chia train. Over the past year, I have played around with various chia pudding recipes, and it's time to share my findings with the world! Although there are many ways to make chia pudding, the best way is always an  Adventure in Cooking! with a clever portmanteau for a title! Come join me!

You will need:

• 2 Tbsp chia seeds
  Of course, there must be a story behind your chia seeds. The story behind yours is that your original supply of chia was a small bag from the bulk department at the organic market. Then, after trying chia pudding one time, your boyfriend became obsessed with it and used up the remaining chia seeds in no time flat. When it came time to replenish the supply, you cautioned him that a little chia goes a long way, but because your boyfriend is your boyfriend, he insisted on buying the 2-pound bag from Costco, and then promptly lost interest in ever making chia pudding again. You now have a whole ton of chia seeds to use up, so I really hope you like this recipe!
• 1 c. non-dairy milk
  You can use any kind of non-dairy milk for this purpose, but I recommend acquiring a a 24-pack of single serve soymilk cartons as a gift and then only drinking two of them over the course of a year. By this point, you will have a 22-pack of soymilks that are already expired, which should give you ample motivation to perfect the art of chia-pudding-making. Bonus if you can manage to string out the learning process over the course of another year, ensuring you will still have some dubiously safe soymilks remaining to use for demonstration when you finally share your recipes.
• 1 packet instant pistachio pudding
  The story behind your pudding is thus: One day, you go to the grocery store to get a few items that you need...but there's a twist: You're hungry. That pistachio pudding is definitely not on your list, but it looks so yummy...and it's only 80 cents! You buy it. Once home and well fed, you remember that instant pudding is actually kind of gross, and you fail to do anything with the pudding mix for several months. Then you get the idea to use it as flavoring for your world-famous chia pudding, and suddenly all is right with the world again!

How to make it

1. Pour half of the soymilk into a sealable container. A good choice of container is the little 1-pint clear plastic tubs that Chinese restaurants use for carry-out soup.
2. Scoop the chia seeds into the container.
3. Pour the remaining soymilk over the chia seeds. Normally this finicky half-of-this-then-half-of-that-then-the-other-half-of-this nonsense is something that a good Adventurous Cook would just skip, opting instead to dump everything in all at the same time. But for chia pudding, this division of steps is actually important, because the chia seeds are so sticky. If you put them in first, they will clump together at the bottom of the carton and fail to gel. If you put them in last, they will clump at the top, to much the same effect. For best results, you must get most of them wet before they make contact with the edge of the container.
4. Carefully measure out something that looks like it might be one third of the pudding packet, and dump it into the container. This is a total shot in the dark, because you have no idea how much pistachio pudding mix will flavor a one-cup plus-two-tablespoons chia pudding, but since one packet of pudding is supposed to mix with 2 cups of milk, a little under one-half the packet sounds good enough.
5. Now for the fun part. Put the lid on your Chinese takeout container and shake vigorously. This becomes especially fun when the Chinese restaurant kindly decided to vent the container by poking a pinhole into the lid. Hello, soymilk fountain!
6. When the chia pudding is thoroughly mixed, put it in the fridge to soak and set. You should leave it for at least six hours.When that time is up, your pudding will be ready to eat!

Mmmmm....appetizing!

How did it turn out? Well, my pista-chia pudding might look like alien excrement, but it's actually pretty tasty! I worried that chia plus regular pudding might make the mixture too thick, but it came out an excellent consistency. I am never sure how much to sweeten my chia puddings. My soymilk is pre-sweetened, but the addition of the chia seeds can make it a little too bland, so I often add a sweetener. In this case, the pistachio pudding was the sweetener! It might border on a little too sweet, in fact, for a healthy breakfast. So whenever I finally run out of soymilk cartons (I'm down to 3!) I will try it with an unsweetened milk.