The Harbinger

Ellie is a retired woman lives across the street from us. She’s lived there since before I was born and has many wonderful stories of how the neighborhood and surrounding areas have evolved. Her husband, deceased 5 years now, used to be a firefighter in upstate New York. Her current boyfriend was a stunt man in Hollywood in the 40’s. She and I have shared recipes, stories and plant cuttings over the years; I love her a lot.

Ellie has been collecting day-old bread as long as I can remember and she delivers it to the local community donation centers and fire stations. Lately she’s been getting multiple shopping-cartfuls from Publix two to three mornings per week. The volume of bakery items that she rescues from being taken to the dumpsters is tremendous and there have been many times that the firefighters have asked her to skip them as they just have too much bread and not enough storage.

Every time she donates her time and effort, I find all sorts of wonderful breadstuffs on the shelf by our door. Lately, there’s been glazed donuts, hoagie rolls, loaves of Cuban and French breads, bagels, focaccias, cupcakes, hamburger buns, and loaves of round yeast breads.

Thank heaven for the freezer and the ducks, or we’d have bread coming… well, we DO have bread coming out of our ears! I decided to try to use up a loaf, so bread pudding got elected to be on The Harbinger menu for this week.

My Wiki search revealed that bread pudding is a dessert popular in the Deep South, British, Belgian and French cuisines. The French refer to it by the English name “pudding” without the word “bread” and the Belgians call it Bodding. It is also referred to as “Migas” in Spanish. It is made using stale (usually left-over) bread, suet, egg, sugar or golden syrup, spices, and dried fruit.

Bread Pudding

Ingredients

6 slices day-old bread
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup raisins (optional)
4 eggs, beaten
2 cups milk
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Break bread into small pieces into an 8 inch square baking pan. Drizzle melted butter or margarine over bread. If desired, sprinkle with raisins. In a medium mixing bowl, combine eggs, milk, sugar, cinnamon, and vanilla. Beat until well mixed. Pour over bread, and lightly push down with a fork until bread is covered and soaking up the egg mixture. Bake in the preheated oven for 45 minutes, or until the top springs back when lightly tapped.

Vanilla Cream Sauce

Ingredients

2 c. milk (part cream)
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoons vanilla flavoring

Directions

Mix first 4 ingredients and heat to a boil, add vanilla. Pour over baked pudding. Garnish with cinnamon and sugar mixed.

Step one ~ go shopping you lazy bitch. There weren’t enough eggs for the doubled-up recipe.

Next ~ use as many bowls, baking dishes and cooking utensils as possible for a woman. Note: men are much better at this. I swear, next time I’ll have practice and know that I don’t need a separate bowl just for the bread…

Finally ~ start the sauce just as the pudding goes into the oven. Cook it on the lowest possible setting for thirty friggin’ minutes and wonder why it won’t thicken. Give up eventually, turn off the stove, feed the crust to the ducks and return to discover a beautifully thickened sauce. Cooking is amazing!

I doubled the bread pudding portion of the recipe in order to use a whole round loaf of “White Mountain Bread” from Publix, having pulled all crust off. It filled the 13X9X2 dish perfectly. The sauce was just a single recipe.

I liked it. A LOT. Then I found out that the hubby can’t stand bread pudding. Son #2 didn’t even stay home after work long enough for me to tell him that there was a sweet treat; he changed his clothes and booked. It IS Friday, y’know. Son #1 didn’t answer his phone, but I did leave him a message to stop by and have some.

I think I’ll share it with Ellie. It was her bread to begin with…

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