Saturday, August 4, 2007

Tightwad Gourmet- Bread Pudding

My favorite comfort foods are mashed potatoes and brown gravy (the real kind), stuffing with gravy, oatmeal with sugar toast, and bread pudding. I like the starchy stuff.
I discovered early in my marriage that bread pudding is an excellent way to use up stale bread and yucky bananas. It's also easy and my husband likes it.
I don't really have a recipe that I use most of the time. The only time I ever didn't like my bread pudding is when I accidentally used paprika instead of cinnamon (yuck... my poor sweetie is a tightwad from birth and ate it reluctantly rather than throw it out).
Here's the jist of what you do:

Tear up some bread (at least half a loaf) into crouton sized pieces. I've used everything from french bread to hot dog buns. Today's loaf is made with half a wheat loaf and a few sesame seed hoagies. Yes, sesame seeds taste pretty good in there too.

Eggs-- one or two depending on how much bread you have

Cinnamon- sprinkle liberally over everything and mix in

Milk-- I use mostly powdered and a bit of whole for richness.. just enough to soak the bread

Sugar-- half to one whole cup

Bananas-- if you have brown bananas, mash one or two up and throw it in there

Raisins- a handful if you like them

Vanilla extract-- one teaspoon or less

Chocolate chips-- optional but yummy.. one cup or less

chopped nuts--- walnuts are especially good in it... optional. half cup or less

Mix it all up in one bowl.. Butter a casserole dish or a cake pan.
Bake anywhere from 40-55 minutes depending on the depth of your pudding. 350 degrees
Today I covered mine with foil and added a pan of water to my oven for some steam.


Serve plain, serve with ice cream, etc. Just eat and enjoy.

Ok, mine is cooling on the oven. I think I'll have to try some.

No comments:

Google