Fishy mis Adventures Part II Trout Rapture

One fish, two fish, dead fish....*sigh*.....

Recall from Part I, when we decided to take out a few fish to eat, my thought was, "what can it hurt?"  Well, apparently, it can hurt a lot.

The next day, January 4, I found a floater in the tank.  I dont know what caused the fishs death.  In reading about humanely treating fish, I came across a lot of catch-and-release articles.  A couple of things I learned - first, try not to take the fish out of the water at all.  Its like suffocating them.  Next, if you must handle the fish, make sure your hands are wet.  If you touch a fish with dry hands, you are effectively "burning" the fish by removing some of its protective slime.  Also, the protective slime is part of the fishs immune system, so besides causing the fish pain, you are damaging its immune system.  I read on several different sites, that often, if you release a fish and dont handle it properly, it might swim away, so you think the fish is going to live, but it actually swims away and ends up dying.  See photo below.  Note that this is on a standard-size dinner plate (10" or 12"? Im too lazy to go measure it).

Big Dead Fish

Knowing that, when we removed the fish from the water, we tried to put the ones we were going to eat back into the water immediately.  Also, we did not touch the fish with our hands.  I dont know what caused this fish to die.  Maybe it was just shock.  But, it turns out, it was about twice the size of any of the fish we ate!  I think it was the granddaddy trout in our tank. 

OK, so one fish down.  I think I should be down to 30 or 31 fish at this point, so everything is still good, right?

Wrong.

Today, I go down to take care of the dogs, and there are FOUR dead fish floating around.  And a sort-of-alive one hovering near the top of the tank.  The nitrate levels are off the charts.  The water level was a little low, so I added some water, but the nitrite levels were still out of range of my little chart, so I did a 50% water change.  During the water change, yet ANOTHER dead fish comes floating by....AHHHH!!!  Frustration.

The only "good" thing about todays experience is that it has been unseasonably warm all week, with today being the warmest day yet.  It was about 65-70 degrees outside today, so at least I didnt have to do this in subfreezing temperatures.  Its a rather wet and messy process.  It did, however, take me three tries before I found a hose that wasnt frozen, but at least I didnt have to carry the water into the house in buckets.  My back is too old for that kind of work. 

Anyway, heres another picture of fish carcasses.  :-(

This is starting to seem like a rather morbid blog....

More Floaters

Now heres where the trout rapture comes in....this is weird.  My son and I were shining the light in the tank, and it seems like there are only two fish swimming around!  Hopefully, the rest are just so healthy and fast that theyre avoiding the light every time we move it and hiding in the corner (is there a corner in an oval tank?  whatever).  Usually, we can see a bunch of fish shadows swimming around, but now we only see a couple, so my son is convinced the other fish have been raptured. 

I still dont know exactly what happened, but Im guessing one fish died of shock and floated in the water long enough to contaminate the water and kill the other fish.  I just checked the nitrite level again, and although its a lot higher than it should be, at least it seems to have gone down a lot since the water change.  Im hoping that if I dont feed them for a day or two, the level will stabilize.

On a happier note, my plants are still alive.  Actually, I dont know that I would call the plants "happy," but they are alive.  Theyre a little yellow, and growing really slowly, but they are still alive.  If I decide to continue with this, I will have to come up with an artificial light solution.  Here are a couple of pictures taken January 3.  I think I planted the seeds at least two months ago, so you can see that the growth is extremely slow.  I think if I had planted these outside in June, they would be about this size within a week or two.

The good thing is that I didnt lose very many plants when we had the super-sub-zero temperatures a few weeks ago.  There is a gap in the dog door that lets in raw, cold air, and I was afraid it would freeze my plants.  I think it got down to about 40 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was pretty close. 

Bed 1 - Strawberries on the Right, Lettuce and Herbs on the Left

Bed 2 - Sickly Tomato Plant and Some Broccoli and Herbs

Well, thats about it for now.  Not much excitement this winter until recently, so there really wasnt anything to report.  Hopefully the next update will have better news!

Thanks for stopping by!  :-)

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Bizarre Beans

The bush beans seem to be growing freakishly tall.  It might be because theyre trying to find full sunlight, so theyre growing toward the window and wont branch out much until they find the amount of sunlight they want.  That could make for a really strange sight from the outside of our window in a few weeks.
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Beans want sunlight

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Growing toward the sun

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In contrast, below is a picture of several bush bean plants.  You can see they are a lot shorter than the indoor ones and they branched out a lot.

Bush beans growing outside in full sunlight

Since were going to get even less daylight until next spring, I might need to consider supplemental light.  Maybe I will use some high-watt fluorescent lights in the overhead light fixtures and keep them turned on for several hours per day.

Below is a picture of what I think are tomato plants.  I planted them several weeks ago, and theyre just now sprouting.  Maybe it was too hot for them before, I dont know.

Tomato plants (maybe)

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Successes beans and Failures peas

Fish update - had a couple more floaters last week.  The nitrogen levels (bad stuff) were off the charts.  I added some bacteria (aquarium starter found at Petsmart) to hopefully take care of the nitrites, and turned the water pump on 24x7, instead of running it for a half hour every hour.
The nitrogen levels are back down near zero now.  I dont think it was because of the bacteria.  It was probably the water pump.  Running it half time just couldnt keep up with the waste from the fish.

Plant update - I think I will harvest as many of the beans as I can tomorrow to make room for leafy greens (probably spinach and lettuce).  The beans are looking good, but the plants themselves are starting to wilt a little.  Im pretty happy if I just end up with a few beans.  I really didnt expect any, since its not recommended to grow flowering plants for the first year.  I really just wanted to see a plant growing, and thats what I had at the time, so I planted them.  Plus, it seemed less likely that the beans would wash away than something smaller, like a lettuce seed.  Here are a couple of pictures.

Beans - October 6

Beans - October 24

The peas, on the other hand, arent doing so well.  Actually, the ones that are near the window seem to be doing OK, but they are not flowering.  Not sure if thats because they take longer to mature, or if theyre just not happy plants.  The ones furthest from the window wilted and turned brown.

October 15 - Dead Peas :-(

I also recently planted some strawberries.  I know, another flowering plant.  But I figured they make good potted plants, so what the heck?  Plus, I think they were on sale at Gurneys since its the end of the season.  The way they are shipped, they dont look like much.  But they are doing surprisingly well so far.  Guess well see what happens this winter.  I think I bought ever bearing, so even if they dont flower any time soon, they should survive the winter indoors.

October 6 - Strawberry plants received

October 15 - Strawberry plants

October 24 - Strawberry plants - doing pretty well

And heres one last picture which illustrates why I am doing this as an indoor project.  This was a big storm for the first one of the season, but once the sun came out around 3:00pm, it almost completely melted.  I thought we were going to lose some tree branches with this storm, but the sun came out just in time.

October 8 - First Snow of the Season

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Fish Apocalypse

So, apparently the fish were not doing the clean-tank happy dance in that video, they were doing the, "holy cow, what did you do to our pH???" dance.  At least thats the current theory, presented to me by both my husband and a friend who is an aquarium expert.

The day after the major water change, I went in to feed the dogs, and there was another floater.  I had planned on draining as much of the tank as I could into a clean trash can until I could see the bottom to see if there was a rotting fish carcass or something that was contaminating the water.  I did not find a rotting carcass, but instead 20 recently deceased fish lining the bottom of the tank.  It looked really weird because they were all facing the same direction, so at first I thought it was the light shining through the slats in the wood...but it was going the wrong way.  I scooped the net through the water and came up with about six dead fish in the first shot.  Some of them were pretty good sized, considering I was expecting a 1-2 year growth period for these fish (I just got them in September).

After disposing of the remains, I did a search to see if its safe to eat a dead fish.  Some people said as long as its not floating, and you think you know what killed it (and it wasnt a disease), they eat them.  My husband said, "You can eat them, but Im not."  Since he has more logic and common sense than I do, I decided to follow his lead.  But, in hindsight, part of me wishes I had separated the floaters from the sinkers and taken my chances with just one....oh, well, there are more fish in the sea.  Or, in this case, the hatchery.

The Apocalypse

I emailed the guys at Liley Fisheries, and they said they have more 4"-6" fish (which is what I started out with), so I think I will clean out and cycle my tank and head back up to Boulder for some more trout...hopefully a little wiser in my aquaculture decisions this time.  I still dont know what started the whole fishy death march.  All I can think of is it started as shock when we took some out, and that led to a chain reaction, ending in my stupid overzealous cleaning.

Oh, well, live and learn.  If at first you dont succeed....buy more fish.

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Cataponics

Since my cats are so fascinated with the fish in the big tank, I decided to make them their own aquaponics setup - aka "cataponics."  It will have a little fish tank with fish for them to watch and a "grow bed" containing cat grass for them to eat.  Technically, its not really an aquaponics system yet, since the the tank and grow bed are not connected.  The little "water pump" that came with the tank is more of a glorified air pump, so its not strong enough to get the water up to the grow bed.  Ive got a few ideas on how to make it work, but I will probably get my husband involved since hes pretty smart about those things and always seems to see the most obvious solutions that I wrack my brain trying to figure out.

Fish Tank (No Fish Yet)

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Nosy Cat 1

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Nosy Cat 2 - Cat Grass Seeds on Grow Media (Fish Filter)

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Decorative Rocks Cover Seed Might Keep Cats from Pulling the Entire Thing Out When They Eat the Grass

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Daddies and Daughters and Why I Love Trout

During the little crisis I described in my previous post, while I was scrambling around the bed of the truck, trying to grab the slimy, floppy fish, I noticed their beautiful markings. It made me think about how I have always had a fascination with trout. Its nice to catch a catfish, bass, or whatever, but I love catching and eating trout! Fresh trout fried in butter....yummmm.

I started to reflect on why I always have a specific craving for trout fried in butter, and I thought of my first memory of eating trout prepared this way...

One Friday evening, when I was about seven, my dad was in the living room, setting up his tackle box. I asked him where he was going, and he said he was going to the Kern River to go fishing. Of course, being seven, my automatic reply (which would have been the same whether he was going to store, going to the park, or going to the dump), was, "Can I go?????!!!!" I assumed the answer would be no, but it was my seven-year-old duty to ask. He looked at me and said, "Get your fishing pole and sleeping bag. Im leaving at 4 in the morning, so youd better be ready." After the shock wore off, I ran out to the garage and got my fishing pole and sleeping bag. The next morning, we left bright and early (actually, I guess it was dark and early) at 4am, with two fishing poles, two sleeping bags, a tackle box, a skillet, and an ice chest with beer, RC cola, and a stick of butter.

I dont actually remember the next part, but my dad has told it so many times, it seems like I remember it. The first day we were there, we each caught our limit pretty early (the limit was ten fish each). There were a couple of young guys camping next to us, and my dad started talking to them. They hadnt caught anything all day (or maybe they had only caught one fish each, I dont remember). They saw the long string of fish my dad was cleaning and asked how many days we had been there. He told them that we had just gotten there that morning, and we had each caught our limits by lunch time. They looked at him and said, "The little girl, too???" He said, "Yep!" Then he invited them to eat with us, since there was no way the two of us could eat twenty fish. He fried up the fish in butter, and it was one of the best meals of my life! I have never been able to duplicate the flavor of that fresh trout fried in butter at a campground at the Kern River....or, at least my memory of it.  Actually, it probably wasnt butter, it was probably Blue Bonnet margarine.  :-)

But I dont think the butter was the secret ingredient. I think the secret ingredient was the special attention I received by spending the entire weekend with just my dad, and the pride I heard in his voice when he told those guys that his little girl caught her limit that day. I do still remember sleeping in the back of the truck, looking up at the stars and listening to the sound of the river that night.

That is one of my best memories of growing up. A year or two later, my dad took my younger sister deep-sea fishing. I dont want to discount all of the time and energy my mom put into raising us, and the special times weve had with her. But I think for a little girl to spend a weekend, a day, or even an afternoon with just her dad...its a really great experience and I think it does a lot for her self esteem. So, for any of you dads who have little girls, I encourage you to find some time to spend alone with your daughter, doing something that is special to the two of you. Im sure it will be a memory that she will always cherish.

Hmmm...I wonder if my sister has a special love of barracuda???  ;-)

There are no pictures of that trip (a camera was not in the list of necessities on that trip), but here are some fish-related pictures from my childhood.

I was about three here - "helping" my dad clean his fish

My mom, my sister and me in the mountains near Bishop, CA

Fishing with my sister

This ones not really from my childhood, but I like the picture.

My helper "cleaning" the brown trout I caught on the Arkansas River

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Rainbow Revival

Last night, I went down to take a look at the tank.  A single fish (which my son later named "Bob") was swimming around the top of the tank very slowly.  He bumped into the sides and didnt move much when I touched him.  Obviously, this is not healthy fishy behavior.  All of a sudden, another fish popped up to the top, head first, with slime and goo all over its head.  Then it just floated to the top.  Another dead fish.  :-(

The nitrite reading was still higher than my little kit can measure, so I decided that today would be a good day to do a partial water change, hopefully before I lost anymore fish.

I started out bright and early at 8:00am, which I realized actually was pretty early for a water change, since the water that had dripped from the hose the day before was now frozen....

I did 4 or 5 30%-50% water changes (I lost count).  The entire time, Bob was the only fish we could see.  Even with the tank 50% empty, I would shine my little pond light all around the tank, and only found evidence of one other fish.  I even moved a pole around the bottom of the tank, trying to detect any dead fish at the bottom.

BTW, Bob was not looking too good.  He has a damaged fin and sort of odd coloring for a rainbow trout.  Not very encouraging, but I figured at least if Bob lives until spring, maybe we can share a little trout pate or something.  And that seemed like a very big "IF."

By 12:30pm, I finally had the nitrite level down below 1.0.  This might actually be bad, since I might have replaced so much water that I have to cycle the tank all over again and deal with another nitrogen spike.  But, I did what I could to save Bob.  I still couldnt figure out what could have possibly happened to the other 20 or so fish...

A while later, when I walked into the room, I heard a big splash.  Was that Bob, rejoicing over his clean water?  Or trying to escape the too-clean water?  Or was it several fish???  I waited a while and walked back in slowly, making sure my shadow didnt extend over the tank, and I saw at least five big, fat trout swimming around near the top of the tank!  Its possible they were at the top because they were distressed, but anyone who has ever had a goldfish bowl can tell the difference between a sick fish and a happy-clean-bowl fish.  At least, thats what Im choosing to believe tonight.  I guess well see tomorrow morning.  At one point, I saw at least ten fish swimming around near the top, disproving my sons rapture theory. 

Here is a short video clip for your trout-viewing pleasure.  Sorry about the bright light in the tank, but it was the only way I could reduce/eliminate reflection on the water.

Quick plant update - as I mentioned, my plants are not looking too good.  Its pretty obvious that the light from the window, especially in winter, is not sufficient to sustain healthy plants.  I purchased a couple of fluorescent grow lights at Wal-Mart for $11 each.  My husband is convinced that I am now on some government list of illegal plant growers, but I think the government is too inefficient to keep track of, or follow up on, that type of thing.  Worst case, some D E A dude shows up on my doorstep, I will be happy to bore him with a tour of my aquaponics setup.  Only instead of introducing him to my fifteen cats, I can introduce him to each of my trout, and send him on his way with a sprig of basil and a head of lettuce.

As for the cost of running the lights everyday, I calculated that running the two lights for 12-14 hours/day will cost about $10 each per year, so I was able to convince my husband that its worth the $20 a year.   All I need to do is get a few good heads of organic lettuce and it will pay for itself.  At least, thats my theory.  If Im wrong, I think I have to give up a few nights of space heater privileges next winter to make up for the 20 bucks.  Stay tuned....

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Baked beans

(click to enlarge)

Theres something very warming about baked beans on a snowy day.

Today I cooked up products from Western Trails (see my blog entry about my factory visit, too), made and grown in Montana. Arent the beans (above) lovely? Can you pick out the adzuki, black, great northern, navy, pink, and pinto beans?

Rustler BBQ Bean Sauce and Buckaroo BBQ Bean Mix

Moz admires the beautiful layering of beans

These products are tasty and easy to use. Also, they keep a long time in the cupboard, and all you need to do is add water. This is important for long Montana winters, where you might not go to the store -- or at least feel like you dont want to go to the store -- for weeks at a time. If the power goes out, simmer them on the wood stove.

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One Dead Fish and Blossoming Beans

Went to Vegas last weekend and put an automatic feeder on the tank.  Came back and had one floater.  I wasnt really surprised. I was actually expecting closer to a 50% mortality rate when I thought I was going to get fingerlings, so this isnt so bad.  The only problem was that Im not sure how long it was dead (it was pretty stiff), so I dont know how long it was decomposing and contaminating the water.  I took ammonia and nitrite readings and they were a little high, but not too bad.  I held off feeding until the next day, then my readings were normal, but the water is still a little cloudy.  The rest of the fish seem to be doing OK, though.  They love feeding time.  I turn on the light underneath them and I can see a bunch of them start swimming all crazy when I drop the food in. 

BTW, Fishcam is dead.  Uh, I guess my Ziplock idea wasnt so airtight after all.  At least not the last time (and I do mean "last time") I used it.  At least I got one sort of good little video.

The bush beans that think theyre pole beans are finally starting to blossom, which means I should hopefully have some green beans soon.  Peas are doing OK, but no flower buds yet.

The beans are still growing crazily toward the window, as expected, to the point that theyre pretty much lying flat on the ground.  Not sure what that means for bean production, but I guess well see.  I put a full spectrum light in the room and leave it on for a couple of hours a day (when I remember).  Hopefully that will help even them out a little.  Here are a few pictures.

30 Sept 2011

Green Bean Blossoms

Green Beans in Growbed 1

Green Beans in Growbed 2

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 Thats all for now.  Thanks for reading!? ??

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From Beans to Marshmallow Fluffy Stuff

Theres an amazing recipe floating around on the Internet that has two ingredients, one always a crowd favorite (sugar) and the other not so much (bean juice).

I found the version I made on Chocolate-Covered Katie, where you will see a lot of attractive fluffy photos and more explanation than Ill add here.

But I do want to give you my experience so youll know what to really expect. Its never like the pictures, is it?

Here in Montana we eat a lot of beans. The best are made from scratch, but sometimes the canned variety comes in handy. But what to do with the liquid? You can add it to soup or throw it out, but why not make fluffy marshmallow stuff?

For this recipe, first drain a can of garbanzo beans, also known as chickpeas. (I used a brand that included sugar and salt, a case of not checking ingredients on the label, which is a topic for another blog. Who the heck puts sugar in beans?) You should have 1/2 cup of liquid. Use the beans elsewhere. I suggest straining the liquid to eliminate any stray bits of bean.

I also recommend putting the liquid in the bowl of a stand mixer. If youre using a hand mixer, draw up a chair and maybe put on a long meditation tape or some pleasant music. If you have a TV in the kitchen, youll be able to watch at least a half-hour sitcom.

Add 1/3 cup sugar or honey or agave. Id add an optional dash of vanilla, though I didnt in this test.

On my KitchenAid mixer I started at a medium speed (4). I recommend starting with a high speed (6 or 8) because that will no doubt speed up the process.

At about 10 minutes, the mixture still looked like swirling egg whites, so I upped to 6, then 10 minutes later (still swirling egg whites) up to 8. At this point I was like, "Oh, man, this is ridiculous."

At the 25-minute mark I wondered, "Hey, is that fluff?" I could see streaks made by the wires of the beater attachment, which indicated it was thickening.

Thirty minutes from the start, success!

I was so intent on the fluffing process I didnt think to do taste tests along the way, but I sure dipped into the finished product.

Heres where your experience may vary widely from mine. I like it. In my opinion it has kind of an "off" taste. Not bad, but it makes you realize this is not the real thing. Real fluff is just sweet. If youre used to "healthy" foods that taste way different than the "regular" stuff, you wont be a bit fazed by this not being a replica of the commercial varieties.

Maybe I could have whipped it longer, but I was satisified with the texture, which was soft like thick whipped cream. It is definitely holding up after a few hours in the refrigerator.

I recommend serving it without any comment. After everyone has enjoyed it on a decadent dessert or in peanut-butter-n-fluff sandwiches, then you might reveal the secret. I doubt anyone will care. Paired with another food, you really cant tell this has, um, a secret ingredient.

I feel I could make this again.

I can guarantee I will make it for company. I cant wait to see the looks on their faces when I share the recipe.

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A Fish Story

About a month ago, I decided it was time to get more fish.  I had cleaned out the tank, just in case there was any fish disease (even though I was 99% sure the fish deaths were due to user error) and cycled the tank. 

I made the trip to Liley Fisheries in Boulder to pick up 50 - 2"-4" rainbow trout.  Boulder isnt really too far from Colorado Springs, but going through Denver - AHH!!!  What a headache.  It seems more like L.A. every time I have to drive through there.  Although, at least when traffic stops in Denver, theres usually a reason for it.  It just might take you an hour to drive the ten miles to find out what the reason is.  Anyway, the point is that picking up the fish is pretty much a journey.

I arrived at Liley and the nice man there filled up my fish "tank" (trash can) with water, poured in the fish, and I was off.  I got about 3/4 of the way home when I decided to pull off the freeway and get a soda. When I pulled off, everything was fine until I pulled out from the stop sign.  Thats when I found out that I had not properly secured my cargo.  The barrel fell over, dumping all of the water AND the fish in the bed of the truck!!!  I went about a half mile and pulled into a Safeway parking lot.  The baby fish were flopping all over the bed of the truck.  I climbed into the bed, set the barrel upright, and tossed all of the fish into the empty barrel.  Even though I figured they would all be dead, I ran into the store (my pants were soaking wet with stinky fish water BTW), bought eight gallons of distilled water, ran back out to the truck and poured the water into the barrel.  At this point, I was thoroughly discouraged, and decided that I was going to give up the fish part and just do hydroponics because I couldnt handle another four-hour round trip to get more fish.

When I got home, I dragged the barrel out of the truck, trying to figure out what to do with it, when I noticed one little shadow moving around near the surface of the water. I started taking out dead fish and noticed that there were still several fish struggling, but still swimming and breathing.  I scooped the live fish into their new home, but judging by their appearance, I didnt expect them to survive more than an hour or two.  I had to take my son to youth group, so I changed and left, expecting to find a bunch of dead fish floating at the top of the tank when I got home.  When I got back home that evening, I was shocked to see fifteen fish swimming around the tank, looking nice and healthy.

One month later, those same fifteen fish are still alive and well.  At the time of my fish disaster, I would have been pretty happy if just one or two fish had survived, but to have almost 25% of the original 50 fish survive for at least ten minutes out of water, and survive the stress of the ordeal...that still amazes me!  My miracle fish are getting fat and sassy, as you can see in this video.  The water has been too cold for algae, so its a lot clearer than it was in the last tank.

On the plant side of the house, not much activity until lately.  Even though I added some fluorescent grow lights, the water and air temperature in the room were too cold.  The dog door in the room had a little strip of rubber around the edges that gets pulled off when the dogs come in the room.  For most of the winter, the "arctic" air from outside was blowing in through this gap in the door.  A few weeks ago, my husband replaced the dog door, so the room stays a lot warmer.  Plus, I think (hope) the sub-zero temperatures are gone for the year.    Here are some pictures of the plants.

Plants look a lot greener with the extra light - before, they were a sickly yellow color

Broccoli

Cilantro

 The beans below are a good example of how important temperature is when growing plants.  When I planted bush beans this summer, they sprouted in about three days, then grew like crazy.  I planted these several months ago.  It took 2-3 months just to see sprouts, and these have been about the same size for at least two weeks now.  Not that the water temperature is closer to 50+ Fahrenheit, I think the plants will start to grow.

Bush beans

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Pumpkin bread pudding

Thanks to a suggestion by discerning dots4eyes, I made the pumpkin bread pudding on the Smitten Kitchen blog.

Its really easy to make, and there are all sorts of variations possible. For example, I did not add bourbon; I dont have any and dont particularly like it -- certainly not enough to drive miles on an icy road to add it to this recipe.

I used my own pumpkin, which is a bit watery, so it wasnt the bright orange you might get using the commercially canned variety. But it was sooo tasty that I felt like doing handsprings. Unfortunately, I am so bundled up in sweaters and long-sleeved shirts that wasnt possible. Or maybe that was fortunate. I havent done a handspring in many years, and there might have been sad consequences.

One thing I noticed in the comments to the original recipe is that many people are unsure of their cooking skills. One gal lamented that her bread wouldnt cut into squares. Mine didnt either, but in this recipe that doesnt matter.

crumbs being added to custard

One thing that does matter, I think, is to use unsalted butter. I rarely pay attention to this in recipe instructions, and Ive never felt anything was too salty . . . except this time. The custard is quite subtle, so whatever is in the butter does shine through. I recommend using the finest butter you can afford. (I used the IGA brand on sale this week, so dont let that stop you.)

Also in the comments was a suggestion to top it off with whipped cream mixed with brown sugar and sour cream. I just used the whipped cream and sugar. The pudding definitely does not need anything added to it, but you really cant go wrong with whipped cream on anything. I sprinkled on some freshly grated nutmeg for an extra spark.

Many comments included something like: "I could eat the whole pan!" Yes, its that good.

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