Spinach and Egg Bread Pudding

If you live in Austin, do yourself a favor and go to Central Market, buy a loaf of the hatch chile sourdough bread (the large sliced boule) while they've still got it and pop it in your freezer for laters. It made this bread pudding extra deeeelicious. But then, I also used my favorite Kaltbach Gruyère cheese in it too and you could make a piece of cardboard taste good with a slice of that on it.

I'm digging cooking without recipes this last week. Just stir stuff together and see what I get.
All winners so far, but I didn't take a picture of the hatch chile chicken stew I made the other night.
The Monster told me to write it down after though...he wanted to make sure he'd get to eat it again sometime. Will post once I remake it as I still have both hot and mild roasted hatch chiles in the freezer.

Ok, so back to this bread pudding. We ate almost the whole thing. Just the 2 of us. :-)
Served with nothing more than sliced tomatoes.

Spinach and Egg Bread Pudding:

olive oil
~3/4 cup red onion, diced small
1 large clove garlic, chopped
~1/4 tsp dried thyme
splash of dry white wine
~10 oz organic baby spinach, chopped
salt, divided
4 eggs
1+ cup unsweetened soymilk, dairy milk, or other non-dairy (I felt I needed to add a bit more soymilk to the final mix and up 3 eggs to 4 for more custard...so just use your good sense)
garlic powder
cayenne
fresh grated nutmeg
black pepper
~1 cup (not packed) grated aged Gruyère (Kaltbach is my favorite)
~7 oz cubed bread, cut to about 3/4" (I used about 4 slices of a boule and a weenie end crust)

Preheat oven to 375.
Butter a casserole dish. I used a 1.5 quart oval enameled cast iron dish.
Saute the onion with thyme and a bit of salt in 1 Tb olive oil over medium heat for ~5 minutes.
Add garlic and cook 1 minute more.
Add a splash of white wine and cook til no liquid remains.
Add spinach and cook for ~5 minutes til no liquid remains, adding salt and pepper to taste.
Remove from heat.
In a large bowl, mix the eggs, soymilk, a bit of garlic powder, a dash of cayenne, a shower of fresh grated nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste.
Fold the cooked spinach, cheese, and cubed bread into the egg mixture until well combined, then pour into the casserole and bake for 25-30 minutes (I went 28).