Butternut-Chard-Cheddar for the Nashville Food Bloggers Holiday Shindig

To debut the new version of the ratings, the forks, I review the Butternut-Chard-Cheddar Bread Pudding that I made. I found this relatively low fat (but high effort) recipe on A Veggie Venture.  It was well worth the effort, though I wish I had a sous chef to peel and chop the squash and wash and cut the chard.  The butternut, cheddar and sage melded wonderfully and the chard added a feel of rightness.  I used Great Harvest's Rosemary/Olive Oil bread as a base.  The custard was simple to prepare and I only needed a little more milk (I used 1% instead of whole), admonished by the instructions to make sure each piece of bread was moistened.  I will likely upgrade myself to four forks when I let the mixings soak together for a while longer before baking.  It was good!

I am so thankful for the incentive, which was the Nashville Food Bloggers Holiday Shindig.  It was my coming out party for the blog.  What a wonderful, diversely-inspired group of food writers.  I had no idea that people knew about it, so thank you, viewers!  And thank you to Lisa of Wine with Lisa for helping me add the email widget to the blog.

It was not the finger food that the Nashville Food Bloggers Holiday party specified, but hey, I write about bread pudding, so what was I to do?  Maybe I'll figure out a way to create bite sizes before the next event.

Oh, by the way, it's only 7 Weight Watchers points as an entree and 4 as a side.  It serves 8 or 16.

Many thanks to Teresa Blackburn for the lovely photos.  And a disclaimer because she is a professional food stylist, and there was a "glowy" lighting situation that defied her talent.

Indigo Grill, San Diego, Recipe

This should make 2 pans, though I don't know what size pans you'd use.

1/2 gallon cream
1/2 gallon milk
1 cinnamon stick, ground
peel of one orange
1 vanilla bean
2 1/2 c sugar
4 eggs
9 yolks
2 loaves brioche, cubed

Soak the following in whiskey or bourbon overnight:
8-9 apples, peeled, cored and sauteed
1 1/2 c dried cranberries
3/4 c dates
3/4 c figs

Caramel sauce (no recipe given)
Apricot puree (no recipe given)
Lemon curd (no recipe given)
Blueberry or raspberry sauce (no recipe given)

Bring milk and cream to a boil. Steep the next 3 ingredients for more than 10 minutes and strain. Ribbon the sugar, eggs, and yolks together and add to the liquid. Pour over the brioche and soak overnight.

Grease pans thickly with butter and brown sugar. Layer the bread mixture with the fruit and
caramel sauce. Repeat. Finish with apricot puree.

Bake at 300-325 degrees in a water bath until fully set. Top with caramel, lemon curd and raspberry or blueberry sauce.

Silver Palate BP, thanks to KMG and DB

This stuff is absolutely marvelous. The texture is smooth and just firm enough. The bourbon sauce is delicate, though you definitely know there's a little something extra there. Even with the raisins, I fell in love. I am surprised I hadn't heard of this Silver Palate dynasty in cookbooks in the 1980s, but better late than never, right?

Price: It was a gift

Raisins: Yes, but I forgive them, and since I have the recipe, I can eliminate them.

Sauce: Lovely bourbon