Bread Pudding For Dinner

I always seem to have stale bread -- ends I haven't thrown to the chickens yet, a baguette we forgot to eat. Today there was also a literally giant zucchini I somehow had kept walking by in the garden. Hmm stale bread, giant zucchini, eggs, and 3 lonely italian sausage links in the fridge . . . savory bread pudding for dinner.

I cubes the stale bread (no small task) and put one thinly sliced onion, 2 sliced cloves of garlic and a sprinkle of red pepper to heat in some olive oil in a pan. when the onion was just getting soft I added in bits of sausage (removed from the casing) and after a couple minutes the thinly sliced zucchini. I sauteed until the sausage was cooked through and the zucchini was tender.

I mixed the contents of the skillet with the bread cubes and the ends of several pieces of cheese (thrifty, no?). Today it was feta, mozzarella, and a bit of parmesan. I transferred that all into a baking dish and overtop poured in three cups of milk mixed with 6 eggs and S&P. I let the pan sit in the fridge for about 3 hours so the bread was nicely soaked with the milk mixture before baking for 1 hour at 350º (I let the dish come to room temperature before baking).

It's always the best part of Thanksgiving, so why not have stuffing for dinner? It's a pretty handy way to use up odds and ends too.