French Toast (breakfast for dinner!)

Usually, I have class Monday, Wednesday and Thursday nights... and at least one or two Friday nights, I volunteer at Friday Knights ( ). Last night, a "snow storm" hit the northeast, so we got a snow day! My night class was canceled, rejoice! That meant I had to think of something to make for dinner... usually, I get out of cooking on those nights.

So, since I felt a cold coming on and didn't want to do anything too extravagant, I decided we should have French toast and breakfast sausage... breakfast for dinner. I took the sausage out of the freezer, and started looking forward to a tasty dinner.

Nathan came home and we got caught up in watching all the tv shows I usually miss on Wednesdays because of class... And then we started snacking (because that's what we do when we watch tv, so unhealthy!). And then, all of a sudden, it was time for bed and we never made dinner.

This morning, after a horrible night's sleep (I was hoping NyQuil would help, but it made everything much worse), I woke up to a very hungry Nathan. So we decided we would have breakfast for breakfast! He didn't take the sausage out, so it was just French toast today.

I use the French toast recipe from the Better Homes and Garden cookbook (You know, the red plaid one that everyone's mom had growing up... Except mine is pink plaid, because it's a breast cancer awareness special edition), but we leave a few things out.

4 eggs, a cup of milk, 2 tbsp of sugar, 1 tsp vanilla, ½ tsp of cinnamon, ¼ tsp of nutmeg. That's all you really need to get some tasty toast. Mix it all up in a bowl wide enough to fit a slice of bread in. We use regular bread, white or wheat... whatever we've got. I've seen people use chunks of Italian bread (and top it with banana!), challah... whatever floats your boat.

We cook it up on a griddle on the stove, it conveniently fits 6 slices at a time. The recipe ends up making about 12 slices... we always have some left over, but that's ok.

Horrible quality, but I was so hungry... couldn't stand still. 6 slices, on the griddle, with the mixture off to the side. (Photo courtesy of me)

The best part about our French toast is the syrup we use... Since we live up on a mountain, everyone likes to make stuff themselves. We've got neighbors raising pigs for meat, goats for milk, fresh vegetable gardens... and then there are the trees. Maple trees grow plentifully on a few friends' properties, so they take advantage of this and tap the trees to collect sap. Then, we all hang out on a weekend and boil sap all day long. Trees produce 9-13 gallons of sap per season, which boils down to a quarter of a gallon of syrup. If your property is full of maple trees, you can make a whole lot of syrup! It's sweeter and more delicious than any syrup you could buy in the grocery store and it makes food 1,000x better.

So, what's for dinner (or breakfast) at your house tonight?