Breakfast kick-starts our metabolism, like starting the fire with some wood chips. Eating breakfast helps us burn more calories throughout the day. But, not all breakfast items are created equal. Some are high in sugar, sodium and fat. With a little bit of planning and creativity, you can turn breakfast into a delicious and healthy meal that gives you the energy and nutrients you need to help you focus at work or at school.
Healthy breakfast ideas usually include oatmeal with fruits/nuts, smoothie, or whole grain waffles. But to me that just sounds so boring. I like to utilize the concept of casserole to make breakfast sound more interesting and more nutritionally complete. It is a complete meal because it has starch from bread, protein from eggs, dairy from milk, and some fruits. This breakfast bread pudding can also be easily converted to dessert without much work.
INGREDIENTS:
6-8 pieces of stale old breads, cut in to 2” cubes (for richer flavor use brioche or challah bread)
2 cups low fat milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup sugar
½ tsp. salt
1 tsp. pumpkin spices (or combination of cinnamon/nutmeg/ginger)
4 eggs
½ of dried fruits (blueberries, raspberries, currants, and/or raisins)
1 cup of sliced berries (for décor)
1 banana, thinly sliced (for décor)
Powdered sugar (for décor)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Tear bread into bite size pieces and place them in a casserole pan.
2. In a small saucepan over low heat, warm up milk, butter, vanilla, sugar and salt, spices. Continue cooking just until butter melts; cool.
3. Add eggs to cooled milk. Pour over bread mixture. Add dried fruits of choices. Baked for about 30-45 minutes or until custard is set but still wobbly and the edges are brown. Top the bread pudding with sliced strawberries and banana. Serve warm.
