Baked French Toast

While I am editing the backlog of oatmeal photos, I thought I would leave you this lovely recipe for baked french toast. My cousins, Tony and Alex, (great guys who will forever be kids in my book, even though Tony is 16 and Alex is 12(I think)) gave me this recipe for my wedding shower.  I should explain.

My mom was wonderful enough to petition all the people we know, (and some we don't), for recipes to give me for my wedding in a recipe box, to get me started cooking for two. Tony and Alex submitted this recipe for that.

Anyway...I hadn't tried it yet because it's a huge recipe for two people. For some reason, it never occured to me to halve the recipe, but I tried that this week, and it worked wonderfully. We had it for dinner, but it could be served for breakfast, brunch, lunch....you get the idea.

Baked French Toast

Ingredients:

6 T. butter

1/2 c. maple syrup

1/4 c. brown sugar

8 slices bread (or texas toast)

7 eggs

4 T. milk

1/2 t. vanilla

fresh fruit (optional)

Directions:

Combine butter, sugar, and syrup in a 9x13" pan.  Set in a 375° oven to melt.  Add one layer of bread, pushing bread together tightly.  Beat eggs, milk and vanilla, pour over bread.

Bake 15 to 20 minutes at 375° (or until bread is firm).  Remove toast onto plate by flipping over so glazed side is up.

Serve with fresh fruit.

Above the full recipe is listed. From the pictures above you can see I halved this and used an 8x8 pan, and it worked fine, though I did have to really wedge the bread in.  I used 4 eggs, and frozen fruit, thawed, but otherwise, the recipe halved 'as is'.

Note: Torn up bread works wonderfully for this recipe, and fits better in the pan. Just be sure that it is in single layer, as anything piled atop will be dry.

Oatmeal, Six Ways.

Pumpkin Maple Oats with Pecans 

This was better than I thought it would be, considering there is cottage cheese in it.  The cottage cheese mostly melted though, and left the oatmeal with an extra creamy texture that was nice, if still a bit different.

Strawberry Cheesecake Oatmeal

This was originally supposed to be Raspberry Swirl Cheesecake Oatmeal, but I ran out of raspberries and I couldn't get the swirl to work.  In any case, this was very good.  Next time I make this, (and yes, there will be a next time!) I'll use graham cracker on top instead of the granola, and I'll let my strawberries thaw a bit more. (I had to stir them in to warm them up.)  Delicious.

Gingersnap Oatmeal

I'm not a big fan of gingersnaps, and so it's not really a surprise that this wasn't my favorite oatmeal.  I think it's the snap....Cookies should be soft!  If you are a fan, I'm sure this oatmeal would be wonderful.  As it is, I enjoyed the oatmeal itself, but could have done without the cookie.  Also, I substituted brown sugar for white in this recipe.

Almond Joy Oatmeal

My dear Hubby made this for us for breakfast.  (I made the almond butter. Used peanut oil again.) He had more time than I that morning, and so decided to treat.  The dish was delicious, with the exception that I personally think there's too much almond extract called for.  Next time we'll reduce that a bit, and maybe up the chocolate chips.  Yum!

Cookies and Cream Oatmeal

This. Was. Decadent.

This oatmeal is definitely on my top 5 list for favorite desserts ever.  I took the liberty of adding some extra chocolate chips, but other than that, it's untouched.  Please, do yourself a favor and make this.  You won't be disappointed.

Peanut Butter Cup Oatmeal Round 2

(This is in replacement of Turkey Huevos Rancheros Oatmeal, which I couldn't bring myself to make. If you're brave, go ahead and try it.) :)

As I've said before, I LOVE peanut butter and chocolate together.  Unfortunately I was a bit disappointed by the original recipe.  Consequently, I decided to try my own recipe. 

For one serving:

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup milk

1/3-1/2 banana (I used 1/3, hubby ate the rest of the banana for me.) :)

1 1/2 t. honey

2 T. flaxseed meal

1 1/2 T. cocoa powder

2 T. peanut butter, divided

handful mini chocolate chips, to taste

Directions:

Bring to boil oatmeal, water, and milk.  Once mixture begins to simmer, stir in sliced banana.  When banana is broken down, stir in honey, flaxseed meal*, cocoa powder, and 1-1 1/2 T. peanut butter.  Once incorporated, spoon into serving bowl and top with 1/2 T. of peanut butter and a handful of mini chocolate chips.

*The flaxseed meal isn't integral to the recipe, but I can't really taste it in there, and it's good for me, so I put a bunch in.  This is 'to taste'.

The recipe isn't too far different from the original, but the chocolate chips on top make the dish, and I prefer the honey in this to sweeten.

Oatmeal, Five Ways.

My apologies to my readers for again delaying on posting. Yesterday was my day for catching up a bit, as I forgot to buy pumpkin for yesterday's oatmeal, and so we had pancakes instead. We'll resume the oatmeal challenge today, but in the meantime....
Maple Trail Mix Oatmeal

I did end up adding cranberries to my trail mix, but the type that I'd purchased already had some dried fruit, so it was quite fruity. With the additional mixed nuts, it was a wonderful topping for oatmeal.  I did forget, however, and stirred the maple syrup into the oatmeal while cooking instead of drizzling it on top.  I usually stir in all the toppings on my oatmeal before eating anyway, so it wasn't a big deal for me. 

Berry Yummy Oats with Honey

This was a bit sweet for my tastes, though that's probably due to the fact that I mixed the honey into the oatmeal while cooking, and then Hubby drizzled some on top for the photo, so I got a double dose.  I couldn't find good fresh berries at are grocery store this past week, so I used frozen berries thawed in the fridge overnight instead.  They worked very well, as they weren't frozen with a sauce, and so thawed only slightly mushy. The slight tartness of the berries helped balance the sweetness, so breakfast was quite good, and I'd probably make this again, sans extra honey.

Honey Nut Oatmeal

This was good.  It didn't taste too far off from plain oatmeal, (with bananas mixed in, of course) with just a slight touch of peanut butter and honey flavor.  I liked the simpleness of it, and, as my Hubby said, the only thing that could improve it would be to actually put some honey nut cheerios on top.

Peaches and Cream Oatmeal, second variety

I love the peaches and cream recipes.  Part of this is that there is NO BANANA, which is great, but frankly, peaches and oatmeal just go together so well.  This one is slightly better than the last peaches and cream recipe. I liked the additional volume that the yogurt added, but for this one I would use regular yogurt, as the tang of the greek yogurt pulled a bit too much attention from the peaches, in my opinion.

S'mores Oatmeal

I am not fond of bacon.  My Hubby doesn't eat bacon.  Because of this, we decided to use the bonus recipe at the end of the month in this place.  This did not disappoint.  It was amazingly delicious. The greek yogurt offered a bit of tang, which, if you so choose, you could get away with using a plain 'american' yogurt instead. However, I liked the tang, and my only edit would be that I'll be putting more graham cracker in next time.

Enjoy!

Peaches and Cream Oatmeal and Peanut Butter Cup Oatmeal.

The Peaches and Cream Oatmeal was pretty good, though I wish I'd broken up the peaches a bit more before cooking...the flavor may have permeated a bit better. Other then that, it was wonderful to have a recipe WITHOUT any banana in it, for once. A good breakfast.

I LOVE peanut butter cups. Reese's....mmm... I fell in love with peanut butter on its own while I was pregnant, but I've always been a fan of the pb & chocolate combination. I love the ice cream laced with it, I love eating the cups plain...I even tried making a sandwich with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Disappointing, that one. Perhaps that's why this breakfast was not nearly as good as I was anticipating. It wasn't bad, just not wonderful. (I think I put too big of a dollop of peanut butter.) Oh well. I'm finding the simpler recipes are the best ones...the ones with a bit of fruit and some nuts. Speaking of, I may throw in some craisins with the trail mix today. We'll see.

Apple Crumble Oatmeal, German Chocolate Oatmeal, & Strawberry Dumpling Oatmeal.

Up next, Apple Crumble Oatmeal, German Chocolate Oatmeal, and Strawberry Dumpling Oatmeal. All three were delicious, but I'd have to say my favorite so far, of any that we've had, is the Apple Crumble Oatmeal. It was more like eating dessert, with no extra sugar actually added other than the natural sugar in the apple. It was a healthy indulgence that I'm tempted to sub in for some other day later this month if the planned one doesn't sound as good. We'll see...

The german chocolate oatmeal was good, if not outstanding. There was nothing really wrong with the recipe, it just wasn't stellar. You may find it's your favorite. Come to think of it, if you like german chocolate cake, you'll probably love this.

The strawberry dumpling oatmeal was originally supposed to be blueberry dumpling, but I decided to use the preserves I already had in stock rather than buy another jar just for this occasion. This recipe tasted surprisingly similar to, though better than, the strawberries and cream instant oatmeal you can buy. Yum!