France knows their bread… and more importantly… their toast.

By Tyler

So I’ve been nominated to break the ice and write the real first post. I would have done this months ago, but I don’t own a camera—I mean, what’s a food blog if you don’t have pictures? Well, I still don’t have a camera so you’ll just have to wait until I make this again and have a camera to take pictures (I’m thinking no later than Friday).

So. Yesterday I tromped two blocks through the snow to Choice Market to get Devon and I lunch while we slaved away at Imaging. We split a mozzarella sandwich and a cup of cream of red pepper soup. Like always, I picked up a sweet treat for after lunch—yesterday it was a brownie—good and simple. While our lunch was being placed into a plain brown bag (I always wonder what one must do to get one of those fancy bags that says “Choice Market” and has handles), I had the nice barista add a lovely, rustic French loaf to the order. I figured it would go well with dinner tonight (or rather, dinner would go well with this beautiful load of bread).

While I was walking back through the snow being careful not to slip and ruin our lunch, I thought tomorrow (now today) would be a great day for French toast. So lets jump ahead to last night where things get interesting. (Oh, the lunch was wonderful)

I grew up in a house where mom made us three kids French toast using sliced bread and egg wash. It wasn’t until a year ago maybe when I discovered it could be so much more (Mom, I know you’re reading this…. I loved your French toast, I just desire a little more from my French toast these days). After eating half the loaf with my plain but great spaghetti and tomato sauce dinner (organic whole wheat pasta with organic tomato sauce of course), I cut up the rest of the bread to let it soak overnight. The bread was very crusty so I thought it would take a little time to soak. I placed 3, ¾ inch slices of bread in my Le Creuset baking dish and mixed the liquid together.

There are certain things I won’t use a recipe for. I guess I can add French toast to that list now. I figured it would be really hard to botch French toast, so why not be creative? I mixed 2 eggs (cage free, organic) with some milk and cream (grass fed, organic). I didn’t measure, but there was more cream than milk and the milk/cream mixture was more liquid than the egg—maybe a 2:1 ratio? To that, I added some almond extract (vanilla seemed too obvious) and cinnamon. Into the Le Creuset the egg mixture went and into the refrigerator that went until the morning.

I woke up this morning at 6:30am (I set my alarm, but forgot I had set it for 5:30am so I could wake up on Saturday for my dreaded teacher certification tests). Okay, so I would have been up by 6:45 anyways—I’m a morning person. I fired up my cast iron skillet and melted some butter. Once hot, I put 2 of the 3 pieces on the skillet and let them cook. Meanwhile, I took some almonds and dried cranberries out of the cabinet. I toasted the almonds in a pan and added a bit of maple syrup. After about 4 minuets, I flipped the toast and was quite excited about what I saw (sorry, no picture). After about 16 minutes, all three pieces were cooked and ready to go. With a touch of butter on each slice, I drizzled the warm syrup with almonds over the top and sprinkled some dried cranberries over the plate. I poured a cup of organic Earl Grey tea my sister sent me from her trip to Portland, Oregon, sat down, listened to NPR, and enjoyed my breakfast.

By 7:00 my tummy was satisfied, my sink had dirty dishes and I was ready for a full day of work at Imaging. Now what to do for 2 hours before we open? Oh yeah, work on my thesis.