Seafood Bread Pudding

I am trying to be more economical about our food purchases as the end of the year approaches with a full freezer. Coming back from Thanksgiving away, I found we had part of a loaf of old bread in the fridge and decided to concoct a seafood bread pudding for dinner tonight. The FrDrDr blog has experimented with savory bread puddings before, once with ham, red peppers, and spinach with good success, and once with South African bobotie with rather less success. This time I decided to use the following basic recipe:

• 2 cups whole-grain bread cut into cubes
• 1 cup meat (in this case, 1 tin salmon)
• 2 cups baby spinach
• 2  large eggs
• 2  large egg whites
• 1/2 cup milk

I was thinking along the lines of a seafood pot pie, but with the cubed bread crust mixed throughout. A brief internet search confirmed my suspicion that cheese was not required for a basic custard, so I omitted it, since we'd eaten the last of what we had with lunch. This was an unfortunate choice, as it left the pudding without a creamy topping. The jarred red pepper we did not have I had intended to exchange for frozen peas that we did, but I didn't remember until the dish had already been in the oven five minutes, and anyway there wasn't a lot of room left. As for seasonings, I opted for several heads of garlic, (not enough) rosemary, and a splash of lemon juice.

A study in greens: One quarter of the "pie" with roasted asparagus (olive oil, salt, herbed salt) and a small side salad. Verdict: the meal was filling, but the seafood bread pudding left something to be desired. I may send Dear Husband to the co-op for some cheese to grate over the last two pieces before we microwave them for dinner on Tuesday with the rest of the asparagus and more salad.

Editor's Note: The dish was infinitely improved with some grated, melted Gruyere cheese on top. Next time I will not omit this important detail!