Ladies Who Brunch

Last night, before leaving the house, I gave my kids a choice for dinner-one of them involved using a neglected loaf of french bread to make french toast. I had made a large crock o' soup for teacher conferences as part of the meal the PTA provided and also as dinner for a new mama. I love doing both of those things, and generally I just make enough that the same meal feeds my family as well. Last night the stars just didn't align so my poor little cobbler's children were shoeless. Feel very bad for them.

I got home from delivering dinner to find that J had already re-heated leftovers and the kids were just sitting down to dinner, hooray! Charlie was immediately incensed that I hadn't made the promised french toast so I blurted that we'd have it for breakfast the next morning before really thinking about the fact that I would never get my act together to make french toast on a school morning. Scrambled eggs and toast? Sure. French toast? Never gonna happen, way too high-maintenance.  Our Best Bites to the rescue; their Overnight Baked French Toast is so insanely good, and it takes almost no time the morning of because all of the prep is done the night before (hence the overnight in the title, in case you didn't catch that piece). 

Eggs, milk, half and half, brown sugar, cinnamon and vanilla soak into a crusty loaf of bread all night creating the most perfect custardy middle and crispy top after spending a little less than an hour in your oven the next morning. Were it not a school day, I'd have added the streusel topping that normally accompanies it, but I figured that the drizzle of melted butter and maple syrup were more than their teachers wanted already. See? Always thinking of the teachers.

Before I went to bed I set, and obsessively re-checked, my alarm for six so there was no chance of oversleeping (silly me, I didn't need that alarm). This morning I pre-heated the oven to 350, put the pan in the oven, set a timer and laid back down pretending that my kids were not already up and playing with legos in the pre-dawn light.

About forty-five minutes later the house was filled with the smell of warm, sweet cinnamon-y eggs as I pulled out a pan of perfection with golden peaks and let it cool. I have to admit, I was feeling like pretty hot shit as I melted a stick of butter and warmed the syrup. I called the boys out and my heart warmed as they recognized the smell and raced to the table. This is where memories are made.

Are you gagging yet? Don't worry. The very next words out of Charlie's mouth were 'Seriously?! This is the kind of french toast that I don't like!' Sigh.