Pomegranate Bread Pudding

I made a bunch of butter and jelly sandwiches and had cut them in shapes for Dominic's school Christmas party, and I didn't even think about what to do with the crusts. My ever resourceful husband left a bunch of recipes up for me to see in the morning on the kitchen lap top for bread pudding. Brilliant man! So I got straight to work! I had never made it before, and I was pleased with how it came out. I added pomegranate seeds to give it a little punch and a festive appearance, but it did not turn out very sweet. And I didn't prepare any vanilla sauce with it. So I'd recommend if you try this recipe and you prefer sweetness, then prepare a sauce to serve it with or add more sugar. This is turning out to be an EXCELLENT breakfast.

This recipe yielded two dishes for me, so bring one to a neighbor :) I think we'll make this for breakfast on Christmas day, it's just so warm and yummy. Okay I'm going on and on. This is actually modified from the food networks recipe for peanut butter and jelly bread pudding, which didn't appeal to me, so I left out the pb and j. I'd include a real picture instead of the food network's one, but mine is half eaten already... ;)



Ingredients

* 4 cups whole milk
* 6 large eggs, at room temperature
* 1/2 cup sugar
* 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 8 cups coarsely chopped bread crust, from 1 (20-ounce) loaf white bread (or the same amount of day-old bread)
* any fruit on hand, preferably dried fruit. Bakers chocolate works well too!
* Unsalted butter, for greasing pan

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly butter a 13 by-9-inch baking pan.

Put 2 cups milk, the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and salt into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a large bowl, then whisk in the remaining 2 cups milk. Stir in the bread and set aside to soak for about 10 minutes. Pour this mixture into the prepared baking pan. Place spoonfuls of your favorite fruits or ingredients into the bread mixture, pushing them in a bit with your spoon. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the pudding is browned, puffed, and a little firm. Let cool. Cut into squares to serve.