Sausage and Onion Bread Pudding

I mentioned here that I had been in charge of preparing the bread for communion on World Communion Sunday. The way our church does it, you freeze the bread so it doesn't get mangled, cut off the crusts, then cube the bread into individual bite size portions. Well with 3 loaves of sliced bread, that is a lot of crusts, not to mention the stuff that is left over from the services. I hate to just throw all that stuff away. It seems like such a waste.

Handy dandy Internet to the rescue! I did a search on Bread pudding and came up with some tasty ideas from Radishes and Rhubarb, The stone soup , cooking on the side, and tasty kitchen Blogs. I took ideas from all of them and came up with this nummy little concoction below.

(Just so you know, the deep dark bits are from the pumpernickel bread, and not because I burned it!)

I also thought I should mention that I realize that World Communion Sunday was waaaay back in the beginning of October. I thought I would wait until I used up all the leftover bread and post all the bread puddings at the same time. Bread pudding makes a lot of food for just three people and I knew that if I made more than one a month we would get very sick of it.

Without further ado...here is my version of this breakfast-y casserole.

Sausage and Onion Bread Pudding
1lb bulk breakfast sausage
3 medium onions
6 cups of cubed stale bread
2 cups of milk (I used 1 c skim milk and 1 c evaporated milk because I had it leftover from another meal)
6 eggs
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp dry powdered mustard
2 cups of miscellaneous cheese (I had bits of Swiss, mozzarella, sharp cheddar, Colby and pepper jack that I used up to make the 2 cups...use what you have!)

Preheat your oven to 375 F. Spray a 9x13 baking dish with cooking spray. Brown your sausage in a large skillet. While the sausage is cooking thinly slice the onion into half moons. Remove the sausage from the pan and drain the fat. In the sausage grease, caramelize the sliced onions. We like ours almost burnt, most people like their onions a light tan. Do whatever floats your boat! In a separate bowl combine the milk, eggs, salt, and mustard. Layer half the bread on the bottom of the prepared baking dish, followed by half the cheese, half the sausage and half the onions. Repeat with the remaining bread, cheese, sausage and onions. Pour the custard mixture evenly over the entire casserole. Bake uncovered for 60 minutes until the bread has absorbed the custard and the cheese is melty.