Speaking of recipes

As the scent of pumpkin wafts through my house, I am reminded that a commenter recently requested my pumpkin bread pudding recipe. So, Tisker, I am finally getting around to posting it. I will give two different versions of it.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding: "Whoomp, There It Is!" Version
(because this is what you find yourself exclaiming when you catch a glimpse of your butt in the mirror the next day)

1 1/8 cup half-and-half
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/2 cup plus 1 Tbsp. dark or light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. vanilla extract
5 cups 1/2-inch bread cubes (French or Italian bread is best)
1/4 cup golden raisins, optional

Pumpkin Bread Pudding: "I Can Still Fit in My Pants" Version

1 1/8 c. fat-free half-and-half
1 c. canned pumpkin
1/2 c. sugar substitute (I use Whey Low*)
1/4 c. egg substitute
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c. golden raisins (still optional - I've never tried them)
5 c. cubed whole wheat bread (stale works best)
Small slice of left thumb, for added protein**

Instructions for both versions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a large bowl, whisk together the half-and-half, pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, pumpkin pie spice and vanilla. Fold in the bread cubes, then fold in the raisins, if using. Pour bread pudding into loaf pan. Let the pudding stand for about 15 minutes. Bake until tester comes out clean (about 1 hour or so).

Double recipe: Bake in 9-by-12-inch glass dish - still takes about one hour to be done.

*Whey Low is a sugar substitute that is much healthier than the chemically altered crap that you find in your average store. It actually is sugar: a combination of fructose, sucrose, and lactose, but with only a small percentage of the calories and without the resulting nasty rise in blood sugar that you get from regular sugar. Don't fall for a certain company's "it tastes like sugar because it's made from sugar" business. They start with sugar and then screw with it in 86 different ways so that it's basically become Frankensugar. In twenty years, billions of people will be slowly rotting away, limb by limb, and the Frankensugar will be banned because it has finally been proven not only to keep you svelte, but...to make your limbs rot. And bad stuff like that.

Anyway, although Whey Low is about 35 times the price of regular sugar (okay, slight exaggeration), it is the BEST product I've discovered since, well, fat-free half-and-half. (I literally cannot drink my coffee without fat-free half-and-half. Really. If I discover we're out of it in the morning? I weep.) The downfall is that you have to order it through the mail. But the good news is, it's the same cost for shipping whether you buy one bag or one hundred bags (but then you'd be living on the streets in tattered clothes with just a bunch of Whey Low bags in a rusty grocery cart, and most importantly NO pumpkin bread pudding, and that would just suck to the absolute highest level of suckage).

Oh, and don't get all grossed out about the "whole wheat" factor of this recipe. You'd never know, honestly. Don't knock it until you've tried it! I just pulled a batch out of the oven a few minutes ago, and WHOOOAAAA, MAMA! Put a little fat-free Cool Whip on that stuff, and you've got yourself a lowfat, low-carb, low-cal par-tay!

**Beware the Calphalon bread knife. It's deadly serious. (Or, as was proven a short while ago: seriously deadly.)