Economical, Decadent & Healthy are 3 words that dont often apply to the same dish

   I woke up early Saturday morning. It was cold, it was my morning off. So baking was the only natural thing for me to do... And what's more delicious than warm bread pudding on a cold morning, maybe warm chocolate bread pudding, but still?

I threw together this impromptu version using traditional bread pudding recipes as a guideline for combining the ingredients I wanted to use. 

Non-traditional Bread Pudding        

• 2 C coconut milk beverage (not the same as canned coconut milk)
• 3 C whole grain bread, cubed
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 C unsweetened applesauce
• 1/4 C butter
• 1/3 C sugar
• 1/3 C dark brown sugar
• 1/4 C raisins
• 1/4 C sweetened dried cranberries
• 1 t vanilla or almond extract
• 1 t ground cinnamon
• 1/4 t ground clove

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 2 qt casserole with a little butter. Add milk and butter to a small pot on medium heat and cook until the butter is melted. Crack eggs into a medium sized bowl. Add the sugar, brown sugar, applesauce, extract and spices. Whisk them together until well combined then add the warm milk and butter a little at a time while stirring. Put the cubed bread into the buttered casserole. Sprinkle the bread with raisins and cranberries. Pour the milk and egg mix over the bread and flatten the top with your spoon. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 mins. 

Serve with greek style yogurt and cranberry chia sauce.

So this recipe is awesome because:

1.  The coconut milk beverage has lots of medium chain fatty acids in it and 60 less calories than the same amount of 1% milk. 
2. It uses 9 grain wheat bread instead of french bread.
3. The applesauce and the fat in the coconut milk replace 1 large egg in the recipe.
4. Greek style yogurt, whisked with a drop of vanilla extract and a spoonful of honey, makes a lower sugar, higher protein sauce than the traditional cream and sugar ones.
5. The cranberry juice soaked chia seed gel is on there just to be cool. 

No, but seriously, Im going to have some form of chia in every meal I make from now. Maybe it's healthy, but what fascinates me more is the uniqueness of the seed itself. It soaks up a lot of fluid (nine parts to one), doesn't add much flavor, and turns whatever fluid chosen into a high protein, Omega-3, Omega-6, high fiber, thickening gel. What? Ive got to play with that...