Totally Forgot About Swim Suit Season Garlic Bread Pudding

Dear Reader,

It has been raining for what seems like weeks.  This cold grey weather feels more late September than early June, which perhaps explains my lack of judgment in preparing last night's dinner.  Smart gals plan June menus with an eye toward fitting into a bathing suit at the beach rather than having to wrap yourself in two garbage bags tied together with duct tape.  But I kind of don't care because what I made was so freaking good.  Real good.  I had almost an entire loaf of garlic bread left over from the night before, and maybe I've been watching too many episodes of Chopped, but my mind immediately went to bread pudding.  Holy cow.

Totally Forgot About Swim Suit Season Garlic Bread Pudding

 I had some mushrooms, so I sauteed them in my skillet with a little butter.

 I also had some soy sausage, so I fried that up as well.

I put these things in a dish with my torn up garlic bread.  Everything was looking a little brownish, so I threw in some sliced sun-dried tomatoes because I don't care if it's not 1994 anymore, I still love the damn things.  I mixed three eggs and three egg yolks with two cups of milk, salt and pepper, and poured it over the whole mess.  Then I waited about 45 minutes.  I didn't really just wait for 45 minutes.  I was doing other things during that time.  That would be pretty sad if I just sat and watched the bread sopping up the custard for 45 whole minutes while I cried deep down on the inside that I had nothing better to do.  What I should have done is filled up on carrot sticks or broccoli to avoid the coming feeding frenzy.  I sprinkled on a generous handful of grated parmesan and baked at 350 for about 40 minutes.

I know, it doesn't look like I ate much, but this was the plate I served to my son, who almost gagged literally to death on the sun-dried tomatoes, but otherwise thoroughly enjoyed this dish.

To make up for this decadence, I offer this musical sampling, perfectly distracting for the long slog on the treadmill.  And this dude kind of looks like a musical theater version of my husband.  Enjoy.

First Day of School Gooey Breakfast Cake

 Fourth grade, Second grade.

Dear Reader,

This year the first day of school came too soon.  I couldn't figure out why this formerly joyous day was now bittersweet, and then I realized: this year I like my kids more.  Of course I have always loved my children, I'm not a monster, but they're a little older now and we can do stuff together besides playing Memory or reading over and over about the cranky trains on the Island of Sodor.  They're real people now!  Sometimes they even give me the finger!  (Not in an out-and-out F.U. kind of finger-giving way, but more like an "Oof, I got something in my eye," while wiping your eye with your middle finger kind of way.)  So today, I packed them off to school and actually can't wait for them to get home.

I wanted to make them something delicious for breakfast - not only because they are awesome and they deserve it, but because I knew I would be exhausted and bleary-eyed this morning.  And let's face it, the first day of school can really, really suck.  Just ask my brother whose best friend thought that dying his hair platinum would help with the bullying.  Wrong!  He was wrong! Oh so very, very wrong!  Then he tried to dye it back to brown and wound up with green hair, oh the torture!  Don't worry though, cause that kid grew up to be team President for the World Series Champion San Francisco Giants, so suck it Eric Berg, you mean bully.

Last night I whipped up a banana bread for the kids, but no ordinary banana bread was this. To make my bread really yummy and special for awesome kids like mine, (and yours I am sure), here's what I do:  I rub butter all over the inside of the loaf pan, as usual, but then I sprinkle in sugar, the same way you would if you were to flour the inside of a pan, but see, I used sugar!  Ten minutes before the thing is finished baking, I pull it out, dot butter on the top and sprinkle on more sugar!  So the outside of the bread is super gooey and sweet and so freaking good.  This works with any quick bread and is especially good if you have that raw sugar with the big crystals which can be obtained for free at Starbucks if you're sneaky or just cheap.

Of course the banana bread recipe I prefer is the You Were a Bully In Middle School Banana Bread from my book, which you can buy even if you are cheap because it is only $9.67 on Amazon.

Enjoy.

 Pan dusted with sugar. Note: I didn't get the bigger crystal sugar, but just used plain ole reg'lar sugar, which is also good.

Bread ready for baking.

Extra buhtur and shuhgur.

Voila!