Leftovers, sweet leftovers….

Note: This blog is about how I used one specific ingredient but I hope it inspires you to think about how to repurpose leftovers and eliminate waste.

How often do you find yourself with leftovers? Quite often I would imagine and bread is one of the things you don’t really know how to handle. You don’t want to eat it again since it won’t be warm and fluffy from the oven so what do you do? I found myself in that situation just the other day, I try not to waste food…..

I was meeting friends for happy hour so I made dinner for Chris just before I left, he loves those canned croissant rolls; I wasn’t going to be home so they were the perfect accompaniment to pot roast and mashed potatoes on a cold Chicago night. I found five left when I got home so I placed them in a container like the rest of the leftovers and went about the rest of my night. Then I started thinking about it, what can I do with those rolls….

So first let me admit I am obsessive about food, seriously obsessive. So I have a mental inventory of what I have in my pantry (admittedly I don’t routinely take things from a box, bag or jar so it isn’t a plethora of goods but it isn’t paltry either) and I started going through that. Ah ha, I have a can of dark sweet cherries so maybe something for breakfast because I also have some whipped cream from the last pumpkin pie I made, I should make a sweet bread pudding! I feel asleep resting easy that I knew what I was making for breakfast and I was going to use things I already had.

So first thing in the morning I started the oven (350) and the coffee. I grabbed the rolls and started tearing them into smaller bits and throwing them into a bowl then I opened the can of cherries and chopped about half in smaller pieces; combined the bread and cherries and tossed in some sliced roasted almonds.

I was making one serving for Chris (I don’t generally eat breakfast) so I thought two eggs would do the trick so I cracked them into a bowl and added some whole milk and salt/pepper for the custard. I love white dishes so I have some cute one serving dishes just perfect for bread pudding so I put the bread, nut and cherry mixture into the dish and poured over the custard; baked for ~30 minutes.

I just felt like I needed a little something more to make it extra decadent so I pulled out the syrup I made last week and the blueberry pomegranate jam and honey; placed the all in a pot and simmered for 5 minutes. This was the best part!

Note: Yes, I make my won syrup and it isn’t hard at all, I bet you have the ingredients in your cabinet right now to make it yourself too!

I poured the syrup over, extracted some seeds from a pomegranate and topped it with a little more toasted almonds; I sprinkle everything with sea salt before serving, not too much but just enough to balance out the sweet. You know I had to squirt some whipped cream on the side too….

That’s it, took me maybe 10 minutes of actual work time so it was super easy and I had everything on hand! Try it sometime when you have leftover bread, some nuts and fruit in the house and any kind of syrup hanging around. Make it your own and repurpose something that would have likely gone to waste.

I hope you will try it…….t