BREAD PUDDING

Don´t know what to do with all those left over bread ends that tend to sit in the empty bag, because you don´t feel good about throwing them away, yet nobody wants to eat them?

When I was growing up, in my childhood home, my mother never, ever threw anything away. She was very conscientious about waste and did her best never to throw anything that was perfectly useful away.

This is where I learned about storing up and using left over odds and ends of bread. We kept a bag in the freezer where we would store those pieces of bread that nobody wanted to eat or that turned stale before it was used up. Once the bag was full enough my mother would pull out the bag and make up a delicious dish of of Bread Pudding.

There are an abundance of Bread Pudding recipes out there, and mine is very different from my mothers, as she tended to make hers more like a custard, using lots of eggs, which I am not too fond of, but most people love.

My recipe has evolved over the years, I am not very good about following recipes exactly, and usually come up with my own version of something. (Mine tends to be more like the mexican Bread Puddings, that I´ve tasted from the Panaderias.) I also tend not to measure things, but I will give you close approximates in this recipe.

Colleen's Bread Pudding

8 -10 cups of stale bread crumbs (torn into bitesize pieces)

3 1/2 cups of milk, more or less (preferably whole, but any will do)

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup sugar (or more if you like sweet)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 teaspoonful vanilla extract

1/2 cup of raisins

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and butter an 8x8 square baking dish, set aside. Fill a large bowl with your torn pieces of bread, sugar and salt. Slowly add milk, 1 cup at a time, and with your hands gently work it into the bread. After mixing in the second cup of milk let it sit for a bit, to absorb into the bread. Add most of your can of sweetened condensed milk, about 3/4ths of the can and save the rest for later. Now, from here you will want to be careful not to over add the milk. First though, add your oil and vanilla, then another 1/2 cup of milk. Gently work it into the mixture with your hands, you want the mixture to be wet, but not soupy. Ok, now, if necessary, add more milk until your mixture is thick, but wet. With Bread Pudding there doesn´t have to be exact measurements so don´t worry over this vague amount of milk. You want to be able to see that there is milk, but you don´t want it soupy. If you do happen to over do the milk, no problem just bake it a bit longer. Once you have all your ingredients incorporated, add the raisins and mix in well. Pour the batter into your baking dish, then pour the remaining sweetened condensed milk evenly over the top, and place into your preheated oven. Let bake for about 35 to 45 minutes, until golden brown and set.

Let it cool, then cut it into pieces and serve as is, or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream with a sprinkle of cinnamon. It can also be served warm. Bread Pudding has a very dense texture, but is truely a delicious way to use up that old, stale bread. I use a combination of breads, just whatever has been left over and stored in my freezer bag, it doesn´t matter if it is all the same type bread, anything will do, well except garlic bread (grin), but it is a very forgiving recipe.

Give it a try...