Savory Bread Pudding For Lunch - Complete With Errors (photos)

Cooking lunch today was sort of frustrating. I started setting up my Mise en Plaz to make a sausage soup in honor of the chill in the air here. When I pulled everything out I found we had only one potato and I needed at least two. Horse Doofers - Error number 1. Poor planning = No soup today!

What a shame, because we really like the soup I wanted to make. More on that another day.

Now I had to figure out what I could do. I surveyed the cupboard and fridge and decided that I had everything needed to make a savory bread pudding, so I set up my mise en place, for that.



Three eggs (not four), a 6 inch piece of a slightly stale French Loaf, 1 cup of fine shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese, a couple of slices of leftover Swiss (because I like Swiss), some salt, pepper, rosemary (hiding in the cabinet), butter, Olive Oil (waiting patiently in the background) and what was left of a pack of ham that I found stashed under some stuff in the back of the meat drawer in the refrigerator.

Error Number 2 - in a minute.

With that done, I started preheating the oven to 350 degrees and decided I had all I needed to make lunch work.

Step one - pull apart the French Bread, crack three eggs, add a quarter cup of milk, a pinch of salt, whip them up and pour the mixture over the bread pieces.

Here they are in the middle of a 60 minute soak with me hoping the bread will take up all the liquid.





Actually I stirred the bread a time or two as I worked, setting up the other ingredients, to make certain the eggs had coated everything.

Step 2 Cut the ham. Well, do you remember the ham? Turns out it had expired about a month ago was rank smelling and slimy. (Error number 2). What to do now? I know - there is some pork loin in the freezer.

I can use it! Into the saute pan it goes.



Error number 3 - Maybe I need to cut it up some...



And season it with a little black pepper, a touch of salt and some garlic flakes.

Now to add the onion



It's looking good. This may work.



Needs butter. Everything is better with butter.



The oven is hot and I have sprayed no stick spray oil into a baking bowl. Now to add the soaked French Bread and cheeses. Oh and a touch of Rosemary (because I like rosemary)



Into the baking dish and oven for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

It looked like this when finished. That's defiantely not an error!



and just before lunch began.



So, we had a nice cheesy savory pudding with rosemary and pork. I wouldn't change a thing. Apparantly, I was successful in spite of my several errors and lack of recipe. Hopefully we'll go by the Piggly Wiggly later today and get some potatoes so that we can have soup while watching the SouperBowl tomorrow.