While driving to New Orleans to go shopping at a Whole Foods and pick up my husband from the airport..... busy, busy night I tell ya...... Miss 11 and I talked the entire time about food. food. food. That girl loves food as much as her mama..... right down to foo-foo olives and stinky cheese.
So, after an hour of talking about food on the drive...... and two hours of talking about food in the grocery store.... I thought "I should share more of what we eat around here with all of you!"...... the good.... the not so good..... and the wonderful! So today I introduce the first "Monday Bites". Bites meaning food, of course, though I do love that little play on words......
Today's recipe is::
Pumpkin Bread Pudding
(a recipe by the Gypsy Mama)
*1 stale baguette cut into cubes (about 1/2 - 1 inch) (about 8 cups)
1/4 cup butter
1 cup of pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp salt
**1 tsp each of cinnamon, ginger & cardamom
**1/2 tsp each of nutmeg & cloves
***1/3 - 1/2 cup sweetener of your choice (we used organic evaporated cane juice)
4 eggs
2 cups of whole milk
Cube the bread and put into a large deep dish pie pan. Melt the butter. (*I browned the butter a bit by turning the heat up until it looks like it separates and turns golden ~ yum!) Pour the melted butter over the bread cubes. In a bowl mix together the pumpkin, salt, spices & sugar until well combined. Add eggs one at a time and mix well after each. Add the milk and mix well again. Pour this mixture over the bread crumbs. Now comes the tricky part, but well worth it. Put a plate or cutting board over the bread pudding to gently press it down. You can set something heavy on the dish to help this pressing.... leave it like this for 30 minutes so the bread soaks up the egg mixture.... if you want to skip this part, the bread might not be "eggy" all the way through. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Bake until set, about 30-35 minutes. If you like a slightly crunchy top, turn the oven up to 375 for the last 10 minutes.
Serve with vanilla ice cream or fresh whipped cream as a yummy dessert.
* if you don't have a stale/dry loaf of bread, cube it and put it in the oven on about 250 for 10-20 minutes to dry it out.
** spices - I like my bread pudding spicy, feel free to halve the spices if you like a more mellow flavor.
*** we try to eat desserts without a lot of sugar.... and I wanted this to be guilt free as breakfast the next morning, so I only used 1/3 cup of sugar. If you like a sweeter dessert, up the sugar to a half cup.
Enjoy :)
**disclaimer** I owe all of this grand brain storming and moment of clarity to the clever little shopping carts disguised as "cars" for little people at the grocery store. It kept my busy Mr Three occupied for 2 HOURS while we shopped for a month's worth of food. Amazing I tell you!
