Springy French Toast

Like many little girls, my daughter loves butterflies!  Since it's officially spring, I thought it would be fun to break out the cookie cutters, and make her some fluttering little french toasts.  I used my vanilla french toast recipe. 

While one side of the french toast cooked, I sprinkled on some pink organic sprinkles (you can use whatever color or type of crystalized sprinkles you'd like), then flipped it over and let them melt into the french toast while the french toast cooked on the opposite side.

When the french toast was done, I used to metal cookie cutters to cut the butterfly shapes out of the cooked french toast. This recipe is pretty sweet, so you really don't need to use syrup or powdered sugar. (Let's face it, this is a special dessert breakfast- not something you should be feeding your adorable little monkey everyday!)

Enjoy!  And be sure to try this with different colors, cookie cutters, or even different textured sprinkles!  When I nannied, I made french toast trucks using blue and green sprinkles, and they came out awesome!

I Lub You Breakfast

Laela loves to help me make breakfast.  One of our favorite things to do is break out the cookie cutters, and make fun shapes out of eggs, pancakes, and french toast.  Last Tuesday was Kyle's first morning back in America from his business trip, and since it was Valentine's Day and he wanted American food, I decided to make eggs in a basket with heart cookie cutters.  I used the heart cut-outs to make vanilla french toast. 

This is much easier than it looks.  The trick is toasting the bread before you use the cookie cutter!

I Lub You Eggs in a Basket

Serves 4, or 1 very hungry Daddy, and two moderately hungry gals.

You'll need:

• 4 large eggs
• 4 pieces of toasted whole wheat or multigrain bread (we are a white bread free home.)
• Butter or margarine
• Salt and pepper
• 1 cookie cutter of the shape of your choice.

Instructions:

• Toast the bread.
• Heat a large skillet to medium heat. 
• Spray it well with cooking spray.
• Use the cookie cutter to cut out a shape out of the center of the bread.
• Set the cutout aside.
• Spread butter on both sides of the bread that has the cut-out in it.
• Place it in the heated skillet.
• Crack your egg as closely to the pan as possible.
• Drop the egg (stay close to the pan so that you stay within the cut-out shape!) into the cut-out.
• Cook for about 1 1/2 minutes to 2 minutes per side.
• Serve!

Vanilla French Toast Cut-Outs

You'll need:

• The leftover cut-outs from the eggs in a basket
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 cup milk

Instructions:

• Whisk the egg, vanilla, sugar, cinnamon, and milk together in a medium bowl.
• Heat a medium sized skillet to medium heat.
• Spray well with cooking spray.
• Dip the cutouts in the mixture (Unless your bread is stale, don't soak the bread in it, or the cut-outs will fall apart.)
• Place the cut-outs in the skillet.  Cook for 2-3 minutes per side, depending on how crispy you want your toasts to be (I like mine really crispy, so I leave mine on longer, whereas Kyle likes his a bit soppy, so I only cook his for about 2 minutes per side.  Sometimes less if the pan got extra hot.)
• Serve with powdered sugar or maple syrup.

Enjoy!!

**This recipe can also be made with regular toast.  Just use 1 cup of milk and 4 slices of toast instead of 4 cutouts.

Challah French Toast Breakfast Bake

With Easter around the corner, I thought I'd share one of my yummy Sunday brunch concoctions. I had a loaf of challah bread that I'd pretty much forgotten about, and Ky was in the mood for french toast, so I decided to whip together a caramel-sauced, challah bread breakfast bake.

You can make this the night before if you want to just wake up and pop it in the oven.

Challah French Toast Breakfast Bake with Caramel Sauce

serves 5-6 (or 4 ridiculously hungry people)

Ingredients:

• 1 loaf challah bread (I prefer the kind without raisins, but get whatever you like.)
• 2 cups milk (I used skim, but you can use whatever you like)
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
• 2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 4 eggs
• 2 Tb sugar
• 4Tb sugar (set aside for carmel sauce.)

Directions:

• Place a small saucepan on medium-low heat.
• Put the 4Tb of sugar in the small saucepan with 3Tb water.
• Allow to simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until golden.
• Once golden, turn off heat. (by the time the caramel is done, the prep for the challah should be done and it should be ready to be poured on.)
• Preheat your oven to 350- degrees
• Slice the challah bread into thick slices.
• Place in a 9x11 or 9x13 rectangular cake pan.
• Whisk all of the ingredients together and pour over the bread. 
• If you aren't making it the night before, allow the mixture to soak into the bread for at least ten minutes.
• Pour the caramel sauce onto the bread.  It may get hard.  Don't worry about that, it'll be yummy and gooey when you take it out of the oven.
• Put the bake in the oven and cook for twenty minutes, or until your challah is a nice golden brown (and your house smells like heaven!) *trust your nose.  If it smells done, it usually is.

As I've said before, holidays are about spending time with your family- not about losing your mind trying to prepare something amazing, while missing out on family time.  Enjoy your holiday!  (and impress them with this super easy meal at the same time!)

*I don't think this is a bacon necessary meal.  HOWEVER, some might.  If you do feel that way, you can bake the bacon at the same time as the bake, and it will all come out ready at about the same time (depending on how you like your bacon).  Cooking both in the oven at the same time will save you time and clean up.

Donut French Toast

This morning, my little brother's holiday leave ended.  Farewells are never easy, but they're especially difficult when it's a loved one in the military leaving.  Even those with the safest jobs are putting themselves at risk, and I know that even though my brother minimizes his job, he's a part of a really important machine- his part matter as much as the next; his risk is as big as the next.

Since Navy food is notoriously terrible, I knew he'd be coming home wanting all his favorites (ginger cookies, good ol' eggs and bacon, hamburgers, hot dogs, fried chicken, etc. etc.).  I made sure we were fully stocked and ready to stuff him to the gills while he was home and send him back with plenty of goodies.  One of his favorites are donuts, so I decided to try Nigella Lawson's donut french toast recipe.  It's really simple, and my husband, his best friend Darin, and my brother swooned over it.

Ingredients

•  (2) eggs

•  (1/2) cup full fat milk

•  (4) teaspoons vanilla extract

•  (4) slices from a small white loaf or 2 slices from a large white loaf, each large slice cut in half
•  (1) ounce butter, plus a drop flavourless oil, for frying
•  (1/4) cup sugar

Directions

• Beat the eggs with the milk and vanilla in a wide shallow bowl.
• Soak the bread halves in the eggy mixture for 5 minutes a side.
• Heat the butter and oil in a frying pan/skillet, fry the egg-soaked bread until golden and scorched in parts on both sides.
• Put the sugar onto a plate and then dredge the cooked bread until coated like a sugared doughnut

Enjoy!

Hangover with a Splash of Flavor

Is this a fancy breakfast?  No.  Is it easy?  Yes.  Will it cure your hangover?  Probably. 

There's two things I made to "woo" my husband that got him hooked..one was hangover breakfast, and the other was the anniversary chicken recipe I shared with you guys a while back.  Hangover breakfast isn't rocket science people.  You make some French Toast (you can go fancy with this, but if you're feeling up for fancy breakfast after a night of boozing, then you're a better woman than me). 

How do you make French Toast, might you ask?  Beat two eggs with 2 Tbs milk.  You can add more milk if you want to, I do it by eye.  Add a capful of vanilla extract (or almond extract if you're out of vanilla), a few good shakes of cinnamon (or pumpkin pie spice if you don't have any cinnamon), and a dash of sugar to the eggs and milk mixture.  Whisk the mixture really well (but not so well that it'll give you the spins!)  Heat your skillet to medium, spray it with cooking spray or grease it with some butter.  Dip bread slices one by one into the mixture, shake off any excess, and toss that sucker on the heated skillet.  Depending on how crispy you like your french toast, do one and a half minutes per side for soft French Toast, and two or two and a a half minutes per side for crispy French Toast.

Now let's talk eggs.  Here are some simple scrabled eggs that made Kyle able to function.

To make scrambled eggs for 2.5 people (and considering Kyle eats twice as many as me), I beat five eggs with about 5 Tbs of milk.  We only drink skim in our house (with the exception of the baby), but use whatever you have at hand.  Beat the eggs and milk together, add a sprinkle of salt and pepper and pour into a greased medium-hot pan.  The trick to these eggs is to keep moving them around as they cook.  That way they get really fluffy, instead of that weird fried egg texture that a lot of scrambled egg recipes have.  And be sure to remember, trying to cook them on higher heat will do nothing but make some awful rubber eggs!  Now, once your eggs are good and fluffy, and seem like they're about done, get a few slices of really good cheese- cheddar and American are my favorites, remove the pan from heat, and cover the eggs in cheese.  Once you've covered your eggs in cheese, put a lid on them for 2 minutes and leave them alone.  Don't open the lid to check on them, just keep a lid on it.  When you uncover the pan, you'll have deliciously gooey, yummy eggs that will line your belly in warm happy goodness.

Mmmm...potatoes.  You really can't go wrong with potatoes. Get your cast iron skillet piping hot, then turn it down to medium high heat.  Pour a 1/2 inch of olive oil, bacon grease, or whatever kind of oil blows your hair back into the pan.  Cut your potato into little cubes (or if you're too tired, just roughly chop it).  Throw in some Tony Chachera's Cajun seasoning, or some Mixed Up Salt, stir, and just leave the potatoes alone for 2 minutes with the lid on.  After 2 minutes are up, keep the potatoes moving in the pan.  If you feel they're getting to dry for you, add a splash of water, put the lid back on for 2 minutes.  Stir the potatoes.  Now this is where personal preference comes in.  Kyle likes his potatoes almost burnt, so I leave them on for a bit so that they get that yummy crunchy, almost overcooked texture.  If you like your potatoes soft, just keep an eye on them, and when you think they're done, give them a taste!  When your potatoes are done, sprinkle a little cheese on them, and whalah!  You've got cheesy hangover potatoes.

Okay, so for the most important part of any greasy hangover breakfast...BACON!!!  Sigh, I swear, I could be Homer and dip it in butter.  MMMMM..okay, maybe I don't want to dip it in butter, but I do love me some bacon, hungover or not.  Unfortunately, no one in my house likes bacon the same way (Kyle likes his barely cooked, Laela likes it kind of crispy, and I like mine almost burnt), so I had to come up with a solution that could save me some time, keep me from having to do a million dishes, and have the bacon come out in a way that we'd all be happy.  Where did I turn to do this you might ask?  My fabulous friend, the oven.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil (parchment and wax paper are not a good fill in for this one guys, so please don't waste your time trying.)  When the oven is hot, place as much bacon that will fit on the sheet without touching (if bacon touches, it melds to itself, and that can make a greasy hot mess if you want to flip your bacon.)  Pop it in the oven, and just keep an eye on it to see how chewy looking you might want it, or how crispy you may desire it to be. If you like your bacon really crispy like I do, you may want to flip your bacon so that it gets evenly crispy on both sides.  Just keep an eye on it, and always remember, if you can smell whatever's in the oven, it's darn close to finished.

If you've finished reading this and you're finding yourself wondering how to get this all done at once, you should attempt it in this order:
Bacon, potatoes, eggs, French toast.

Yes, I know this blog is about Mommies and babies, but let's be real people, some days you go out on date night, or for a night out with your friends, and you wake up the next day wishing your Mommy was there to make you breakfast.  Unfortunately (and fortunately!) for you, you're a grown up with responsibilities, so get your butts in gear, fill up the sippy cups, give the kids some pots and pans and wooden spoons to play with while you cook and make your family some breakfast!  I promise, you'll feel at least 90% better.