French Toast: How to make white bread exciting again.

As I’ve mentioned before, Husband and I work at a food pantry. We were leaving the other week and the leader of the pantry, L, came up to us and said “We defrosted these loaves of bread, can you take them? We don’t want them to go to waste!” I dislike food waste, but I also don’t eat a lot of plain, white sandwich bread. We took it home, but I worried we’d let it languish without consuming it ourselves.

On Saturday, though,  I decided to whip up one of my breakfast favorites that I rarely make when there’s no bread in the house. I mixed about a cup of whole milk, three eggs, two tablespoons of brown sugar, and a dash of vanilla and cinnamon with a whisk, then dipped slices of bread into the mix and fried them on a griddle with butter on it. I left the first pieces soaking too long, so they fell apart, but after that, I dipped slices in quickly and fried them, adding extra cinnamon if one side looked particularly sparse. Whereas Egg in a Basket is savory, this was a tasty, sweet twist.

Husband prefers his french toast with honey and I preferred mine with butter and jam. We made about half a loaf of bread’s worth, and the leftovers kept in the fridge and were nice to reheat and eat the following morning.

I remember that there was a little hippie restaurant near where I went to college that, for special occasions, would be where my friends and I would get breakfast. Their best dish, in my opinion, was french toast layered with sweetened cream cheese and strawberry preserves, usually served with a side of home fries just to vary up the textures and flavors. It makes you feel well-fed to eat something with such heart, but still full of sweetness. I might be able to use up those extra loaves of bread yet. 🙂