Kale & Squash Bread Pudding
Is it stuffing? Is it sides? Is it everything?
I am perpetually too late for everything on the internet and in life. My brain feels like it’s spinning impossibly, uncomfortably fast, and yet by the time I’ve actually shushed and calmed the thing down enough to write something, the relevance of my once-topical subject is shrinking fast in the rearview. In this case, Thanksgiving. I’d meant to get this recipe to you in time for Canadian Thanksgiving, and here we are two days before the American one. I tested this once, ages ago, but thought I’d better do it at least once more before sharing. I bought a delicata squash for the purpose and there it sat on my counter for weeks, lightly taunting me.
Then this past weekend a cold snap hit my town. This led to the cancellation of outdoor plans and some time opened up to putter in my kitchen. While puttering, I watched this hypnotic, boring-in-the-best-way video of Eric Kim testing twenty different stuffings from NYT recipes gone by in order to make his own new recipe. The whole thing was partly a clap-back to haters of the Pizza Stuffing he developed last year and, well, I love that.
Tangentially related: while stalling on bread pudding testing, I was also trying to write something incisive on the subject of the Philadelphia man who ate an entire rotisserie chicken every day for 40 days. What came out was essentially a half-baked rehashing of what I wrote about anchovies earlier this year, which took me three months for better or worse. I sadly don’t have that kind of time for chickens just now, and also the Chicken Man’s response to PETA’s inevitable vegan challenge — truly the racist, sexist worst of veganism, I am not a fan! — was so kind and thoughtful that I felt slightly less annoyed with the sycophantic, uncritical brouhaha surrounding his consumption of the birds on my every timeline. “To counteract the 40 chickens I consumed, I plan to never eat chicken again. I also plan to cut back on the meat I eat but to choose a vegan lifestyle, I will not commit to it,” he said. Okay!
The nicest part about trying and failing to write about Chicken Man was it made think more about chickens than I have in a while. I remembered the handful of times I spent holding them and petting their soft feathers at farm sanctuaries my partner and I visited a while back. Thinking about them also caused me to reread this lovely essay by Tove Danovich about her backyard chickens — about whom she has now written a whole book! She writes:
Chickens are chatty creatures. When I sit in the yard with them, they burble to each other almost nonstop with contented buks and brrips that are check-ins of a sort, “I’m doing good. How are you?” It’s as calming as a cat purring.
I also re-read my own 2015 interview with Tiara Soleim, a Bachelor contestant made briefly famous by her self-identification as a Chicken Enthusiast. Though I believe she eats chickens and has definitely subjected them to Tucker Carlson appearances, I am forever appreciative of how generously she shared her chicken love with me:
They're smarter than people think. People say, "They're so dumb," and I'm like, "Funny story: they're actually not at all." It's all based on how you raise them. If you don't handle them at all, they're not going to be entertaining. Mine live inside with me for the first two to four months and then they go outside. By then they're bonded to me, and they're super funny. They know their names. They know my car. If anyone else pulls up in the driveway they look, but when it's mine they're like, "[adorable clucking]."
By the time I had sufficiently noodled around my chicken memories, Chicken Man was but another faded dream and I had slammed right into Turkey Time — videos of cooks gleefully cracking breastbones and crunching on crispy skin all the damn way down my feeds.
That cold-snapped Sunday proved the perfect storm to finally get on with things: I was blissed out on Kim’s talk of toasty bread; mad as usual about people roasting nice birds; my kitchen was finally tidy; and I took hold of that little squash on my counter and went to town. This may not be in time for anyone’s “holiday table,” but it’s a fabulous meal for any winter weekend!
Kale & Squash Bread Pudding with Parsley Pesto
This bread pudding is basically like stuffing and other Thanksgiving side-dishes had a baby but then the baby was way more substantial and filling than either parent because of a creamy, delicious pumpkin seed custard binding all the other yummy things together.
The bread cubes and kale on top toast into croutons and kale chips respectively, while down below is a creamy, dreamy, carby mixture complete with the comforting sweetness of squash. Also, for those serving skeptics of vegan food, there’s no store-bought “fake cheese” or “fake eggs” in it, it’s all “ingredients you can pronounce,” including vermouth, okay Aunt Sharon?
I use delicata squash because you don’t have to peel it, but you could sub any type you like, or even sweet potato. You can also change up the greens, herbs, and aliums — I’ve now tried an onion and a leek, and both were great. Do what you like, just make sure you give the pudding a fifteen minute rest before you put it in the oven so the bread can really soak up the custard and things don't get dry. I bet you could even let it rest overnight for a make-ahead option, but I haven’t tried it. Lmk if you do!
About the custard! This recipe leans on my favourite fact: that oil seeds — pumpkin, sesame, egusi, etc. — are magical (hydroscopic) and clump and firm up in a rather egg-like manner when you grind them and heat them in liquid. West African cuisine uses this feature of the egusi seed to delicious effect in soups and stews, like this one by Afia Amoako. I wrote about “pumpkin seed eggs” more fully here, demoed “tahini scramble” here, and very much enjoyed watching Mary’s Test Kitchen tackling “pumfu.” Yes, pumpkin seeds can be a bit expensive, but they’re cheaper than Just Egg, and I think more fun because science. Try for yourself!
The simple parsley pesto is optional, inspired by an Ottolenghi recipe for a kale pesto strata. This recipe intentionally doesn’t make much — just a few dots of it brighten things up visually and taste-wise. But I think this would go equally well with a nice onion gravy or just on its own. The vermouth and fermented bean curd are also optional, but they are proven by years of vegan lore to provide “gruyere vibes” when combined. If you don’t use the bean curd, adjust for salt.
Ingredients:
Vegetables:
1 onion or leek, sliced
1 large bunch kale, thick stems removed, leaves chopped into bite-sized pieces (you could use a bag of pre-chopped kale if you like)
1 medium delicata squash, chopped into 1 inch pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
Pinch of chili flakes
Pumpkin seed custard
1 cup pumpkin seeds (pepitas) (if you don’t have a high-speed blender, soak in water overnight in the fridge, then drain.)
1 cup water
2 cups unsweetened soy milk (unsweetened oat or almond milk would prob be fine)
1 clove garlic
1 tbsp vermouth (optional; can sub white wine)
1.5 tbsp dijon mustard
1 square fermented bean curd (optional; read more about this ingredient here)
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tbsp tapioca, corn, or potato starch
1 tsp salt
½ tsp msg (optional)
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp dried marjoram
1/2 tsp dried sage
1/8th tsp turmeric (this is just to counteract the greenish hue of the pumpkin seeds. Feel free to bump this up if you like the taste and traditional wildly yellow hue of “vegan eggs.”)
Bread
6-7 large slices of sourdough bread, about 3/4 inch thick.
Optional Parsley Sauce
1 cup parsley, lightly chopped
Medium garlic clove
1/4 tsp dried sage (or a 3-4 leaves fresh if you have!)
1tsp nutritional yeast
Good pinch of salt
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water
2 tbsp olive oil
Method:
Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly oil a casserole dish. CHECK SIZE.
Lay out bread on a sheet pan and toast in the oven a total of 10 minutes, flipping halfway through. Let cool. Turn the oven up to 400F.
While bread toasts, add onion or leek to a deep skillet over medium heat with the olive oil and some salt and pepper. Sauté until translucent, about 3 minutes. Add squash pieces, season with salt, pepper, and chili flakes and continue to sauté, stirring occasionally, until squash is softened a bit and vegetables are starting to caramelize, 6-7 minutes. Add the kale leaves, stir until they’re wilted, then put a lid on the pan and allow to steam for 2-3 minutes. If you just rinsed your kale, there will be enough moisture. If not, you may want to add just a tablespoon of water to scrape up the brown bits in the pan and steam your kale. Remove from the heat.
Between stirrings of your veggie mixture, use a bread knife to chop your toasted bread into 1-inch cubes. Put the cubes into the prepared casserole dish. When your veggie mixture is done, add this to the bread in the casserole dish and stir together.
Add pumpkin seeds and water to a blender and blend for a minute until mostly smooth. Add the rest of the custard ingredients except the herbs and blend another minute until very smooth. Stir in the herbs and let sit for two minutes so they can hydrate and “bloom” a bit. Taste the mixture for seasoning and adjust to your taste.
Pour the custard all over the contents of the casserole dish and stir well. Get in with your clean hands if you need to dunk any bread cubes down and get them custardy. You want everything pretty saturated. Once it’s looking well mixed, arrange so that there’s a decent amount of bread on the top for the toasty top, and also kale for the kale chip feeling. Let sit at room temp for 15 minutes (or longer in the fridge if you like!)
While it bakes, you can make the parsley pesto. I just throw all the ingredients in a measuring cup and blend with my immersion blender. If you use a regular blender, you may wish to double the recipe to allow for easier blending — you can always use the pesto to garnish other things. Once blended, taste and add more lemon juice and salt if desired.
Place the casserole in the oven and bake for about 50 minutes until the bread on top is golden brown and the kale is crispy, but not burnt. Start checking at 45 minutes in. When you press down on the pudding with a fork, it should feel quite firm. Let it rest 10 minutes before cutting for best results. Cut into squares, dot with a little pesto or smother in gravy and serve!
