Savory Bread Pudding

We're going to be heading to my Grammy's memorial service in New York this weekend, so meals become a "use up what's left" mission.

Tonight I had a head of broccoli and a plate of leftover Easter ham on my immediate list. Perusing Pioneer Woman's (PW) website, I typed in a search for ham and a few unrelated recipes came up - things that she'd mentioned HAMburger, or what a sHAMe... that sort of unrelated. But, one ended up being really, really promising anyways. A savory bread pudding, using sandwich bread, a meat, veggies, and eggs, milk, and cheese. The submitter had promised you could just replace whichever meat and veggies you needed to get rid of, so it ended up working perfectly in my case!

I started with 6 slices of whole wheat sandwich bread. Which worked out because Johnny usually uses it to make his work lunches, but won't need as much this week, so here was another way to make use of it. Just rough chop it and put it in the bottom of a greased casserole dish. Or, you could even save the heels in the freezer and use them up in this recipe from time to time.

Next, I washed and cut up the head of broccoli and 1/4 of a yellow onion. You could use any vegetables you have on hand here. The recipe PW featured had tomatoes and greens which looked really colorful in the pictures.

Now it's the meat's turn. In my case, it was a plateful of leftover Easter ham Johnny's generous mom sent us home with (along with many other plates of leftovers, fresh fruit, and fresh eggs). I cubed the ham up and it went over the vegetable layer. The PW's featured bacon at this point, but again - whatever meat you have on hand and need to use up.

Finally, mix 8 eggs, 1/2 cup of milk (or half and half as PW used) and spices of your choice together. Stir in a big handful of grated cheese (I used cheddar because we had a bag pre-grated), and pour over everything already in the dish.

Bake in a 350° oven for 30-45 minutes, until the top is starting to get bubbly and browned and the center is cooked through. Cut into squares and serve. I have a feeling the leftovers will be really good for breakfast, too! Yet another versatile meal that you can swap ingredients out for!

Served along fresh sliced strawberries. The casserole made 4 hefty sized servings.