Savory Bread Pudding

My most hilarious friend calls our Winter Weather Advisories "FTE's."  You know, everyone runs out to the store to buy milk, eggs, and bread to stock up for, apparently, the upcoming "French Toast Emergency."

After the storm clears there's only so much french toast you can actually eat to use up all that milk, eggs, and bread - so why not try something new? I love a good savory bread pudding. It's quick and easy and a great way to use up a stack of eggs if the hens are on full production, or you have a slightly stale loaf of bread, or extra milk. I save up the odds and ends of my home made bread in the freezer until I have enough to make this hearty and warming dish.

The recipe is very forgiving and its really "use what you've got." I started with this as a base recipe but I didn't have half of the ingredients they listed.

If I remember right I used:

4 or 5 eggs
2 cups of milk plus a glug of cream
whatever homemade bread I had left from our all-carb-Christmas-day
a pint jar of home canned sweet potatoes, drained
half an onion I had left over from something else
a stalk of celery
a handful of whatever shredded white cheese I had in the fridge
a handful of Parmesan 
a dash of nutmeg
a sprinkle of thyme
and some generous grindings of salt and pepper

Mix up the eggs and milk and soak the bread chunks (I cut them into cubes) while you saute the onions and celery in a lot of butter. Add the sweet potatoes to the fry pan and season with thyme, salt, and pepper. Pour this mix over the bread and "custard", mix in the cheese and nutmeg, and then turn out into a buttered baking dish. Top with another shake of cheese. Then I baked it for about 45 minutes at 350* or until it was browned and beautiful.

I served this with broasted chicken and it was perfect. Its also spectacular the next day for breakfast - heated up and with a fried or poached egg on top.

So now you know what to do with all your extra FTE items. Savory bread pudding - its delish!

Happy Friday everyone. We are in for another round of snow - snuggle in, friends!