Bread
A few weeks ago, I paid a visit to The Random Cafe with my grandson and parents. (To be honest you’ll find me there a few times a week, drinking coffee, but that’s beside the point.) We had a lovely coffee and cake made, by one of the volunteers and a good old chat with Jane the Founder and Project Manager.
If you haven’t been I highly recommend it. To read more about The Random Cafe and Sustainable Shop read my blog Random Cafe
Anyway, once we’d finished our coffee we visited the Randon Cafe’s Sustainable Shop, where, for a small donation, I purchased a focasia and a small loaf. I felt very proud of myself for buying products that were due to waste rather than fresh from the supermarket.
By the evening The focasia was a bit dry so I splashed a few drops of water on it and popped it into the microwave for a 10 seconds and it came out nice and soft. It was a delicious accompaniment to our meal.
By the next day the loaf was rock solid. I hadn’t thought about both items already being past their best when I bought them. Even trying to do the right thing I was at risk of wasting food. My go to with stale bread is to make it into breadcrumbs and freeze it, but my blender is broken. (might need to ask Santa for a new one at Christmas).
So I was in a dilemma, I’d got this loaf of stale bread and didn’t know what to do with it. Internet searches, on what to do with stale bread, showed loads of bread pudding recipes but I needed to make a meal, not just a pudding. That’s when the idea hit me! I could make a savoury version!
I had eggs, cheese and milk in the fridge, along with some broccoli and an onion. The recipe was forming in my head.
I chopped the onions and broccoli, and fried them gently in a pan. While these were cooking I sliced half of the loaf, I was only cooking for the 2 of us so no need to use all of it. Buttered the bread (and the oven proof dish I was using) as suggested in the bread pudding recipe, then grated some cheese. (by the way, turns out you can use a cheese grater to turn stale bread into bread crumbs, Thats what i did with the second half of the loaf and its now in my freezer. I’ll share some recipe ideas using breadcrumbs in next months blog)
The recipe said to cut the bread in neat little triangles and place them in the oven proof dish with the points sticking up. They were using a shop bought, pre sliced loaf and could do pretty little triangles and a uniform pattern, but my loaf was an oval sourdough. This wasn’t doing to be a pretty dish, to be fair my cooking is very rarely pretty, I’m far too impatient, or should that be lazy, to bother about aesthetics. So I just cut it into chunks.
I covered the bottom of the dish with a layer of bread. The recipe said to sprinkle with dried fruit, but as this was my savoury version, I sprinkled half off the onion and broccoli mixture and a handful of cheese, then more bread, the rest of the onion and broccoli mix and more cheese. I always find if I’m making a new recipe it’s a good idea to cover it in cheese then Green Grandpa eats it without complaining 😉
The recipe then said to mix the eggs and milk together in a jug and pour over the bread until covered. That works with a savoury or sweet recipe, so no need to change anything there.
Once covered I placed it in the oven and 40 minutes later the kitchen smelt lovely and a hug pillow of eggy, bready, cheesy deliciousness was waiting to come out of the oven. I couldn’t believe how much it puffed up. Think I might have whisked the eggs a bit too much.
It tasted great, although the texture wasn’t quite right. It was very moussey. Not the right texture for a meal. But this idea definitely had legs. I’ve made this a few more times since and have reduced the milk content drastically. It has a much better texture and feels more like a meal.
Bread Bake
This recipe is for 2 large portions - Green Grandpa and I are big eaters ;)
Ingredients.
Leftover bread - 6 good slices
Butter, enough to cover all 6 slices of bread and to coat the dish cooking dish (I sometimes like to use garlic butter)
3 Eggs
125ml Milk
1 medium Onion
Cheese (I used cheddar but you could use whatever cheese you have to hand)
Small head of Broccoli
1 tablespoon cooking oil
pinch of Salt and Pepper (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to gas mark 4 or 180 degrees C
Chop the onions, I prefer slices for this recipe but use whatever works for you. Gently, heat the cooking oil in a pan, add chopped onions and allow to soften while you prepare the broccoli.
Cut the head of broccoli into small florets, and grate the remaining stalk (the stalk has a lovely peppery taste and is far to good to go to waste). add the broccoli to the pan of onions and cook for another 2 minutes.
Grate the cheese.
Butter the bread and the baking dish you are using (to stop the food sticking to the dish)
Chop bread into chunks and place half of the bread in the buttered dish (the dish I use is 13cm by 23cm, that’s 5x9 inches in old money)
Sprinkle half of the onion and broccoli mix and half of the cheese.
The place the rest of the bread, followed by the onion and broccoli into the bowl.
Break all 3 eggs into a bowl (I like to break mine individually into a cup first, incase one of them as gone bad, but I know a lot of people think I’m being over the top doing that). Add milk, salt and pepper and whisk together with a folk.
Pour the liquid mixture over the rest of the ingredients in the dish. Gently push the bread mixture down into the eggy liquid (depending on the size of your eggs and the size of your dish, you may need to add another egg and a little more milk.)
Finally sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake for 35 mins. ave fun
You don’t have to stick to the ingredients I’ve used. You could use:- Spring Onion, Ham, Cooked meat (chopped left over sausage is delicious), Chopped Peppers, Chillies, Tomatoes, Pepperoni, the list goes on. Have Fun, play around with whatever ingredients you have to hand. The only limitation is your imagination.
N.B I love using mushrooms, spinach and courgettes in mine too, but find they need cooking first. Otherwise the moisture that comes out of these makes the dish soggy. I just grate the courgette, chopped the mushrooms and spinach and toss them around in a frying pan for about 5 mins before adding to the dish.
🌿