Saffron Breakfast Kheer

Kheer is an Indian rice pudding eaten on high holy days and at feasts. It is a calming mix of gentle spice, milk, and rice, which I find especially good to eat at breakfast time. There is nothing more nourishing to my mind than milk and rice together—easy to eat and cleansing in the best possible sense of the word. I make a double batch of this and reheat it with a little extra milk on the following days; sometimes it's dessert too. Kheer is used in the Ayurvedic tradition to balance the system during the winter; the sweet cinnamon helps digestion, and the warmth of the rice and milk protects against any wintery cold.

I use brown rice here but white rice would be just as delicious. I suggest soaking the rice overnight—it is a two-minute job and will vastly speed up the cooking process. If you don't remember to do it overnight, then soaking it as long as you can will be OK. If saffron is a bridge too far for breakfast, then you can just leave it out; the other spices will hold up.