Despite being a carbaholic, I rarely buy bread. Sure, I make banana bread and cinnamon swirl bread from time to time, but if I didn’t bake the bread myself, I’d just as soon not eat it. (I find store-bought bread questionable in most cases.)
And, when I do buy bread, I almost always commit sacrilege by letting the bread get stale. Once a chunk of French bread has served its purpose sopping up sauce or soup, the remaining baguette inevitably ends up on top of my fridge, discarded and forgotten.
That’s where French toast comes in. (And croutons, but that’s for another day.) Even when the bread is so dry that I could sand furniture with it, the bread will still soak up egg. (BONUS: When the bread is that dry, the resulting French toast isn’t soggy, but just-soft-enough.)
It’s a miracle of nature that I will never take for granted.
Simple French Toast:
a few slices of stale bread
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
1 tablespoon butter
1) Whisk eggs, milk, flour, sugar, vanilla and cinnamon in a shallow dish. Dip bread in the dish to cover with the egg mixture thoroughly. (If your bread is really stale, like mine was, soak the bread overnight.)
2) In a pan on medium-low heat, melt butter. Add egg-covered bread slices. Cook for about 3 minutes, or until golden brown. Flip and cook until golden brown on the other side.
3) Top with anything and everything, like the combination maple syrup, slivered almonds, and a smear of cream cheese shown above. Probably could’ve worked some fruit in there somewhere…
nestMeg 