Tidbit Thursday - Mastering Your Mornings

I don't get morning people.  Never have, never will.

My daughter is a morning person.  I hope this will have no bearing on the future of our mother-daughter relationship.

I am willing to do almost anything that will cut down the amount of time I have to be up in the morning before my children turn into hungry, ravenous wolves.

Leaving out the milk and cereal is problematic.  Sure, you can sweep up cereal.  But have you tried cleaning up sour spilled milk?  Or the upchuck that is likely to result from the milk having sat out all night in the middle of the summer?

I knew a guy who used to go so far as to pour milk on his boxed cereal, cover it in plastic wrap and keep it in the fridge until morning, but that would test the limits of even Chex, I would think.

My grandparents used to entirely set the table the evening before to cut down on morning activities.

The authorities frown on allowing 5 year olds to use the stove unsupervised, so bacon and eggs are clearly out.

Ditto with sharp knives, even grapefruit knives.

They leave me no choice but to roll my sorry self out of bed in the morning and feed the little rascals.  At least the kitchen is also where the coffee maker is stored.

I am not a huge fan of toaster pastries, pre-fab pancakes, or frozen waffles.  Our budget is really, really not a fan.  Solution?  Make them myself. 

It takes almost no extra effort and very little extra time to make extra French toast, waffles, or pancakes, while you are already at it. 

You can even use your handy dandy panini press!

The one on the right may or may not be the victim of a child-based distraction.  Let them cool on a plate in as close to a single layer as is practical.

To keep them from sticking to one another inside the zip top bag, put them in one layer at a time and freeze them, before adding another layer.  This will actually give the other pieces more time to fully cool and even dry out a bit, since they may have steamed from being at the bottom of the pile.

I suppose you could use wax or parchment paper between the layers, but that's a whole other step.

Then you'll need one or both of these. 

In your toaster oven, preheat to 400 F and cook for 5-10 minutes, depending on how many you cram in there.
*Sidenote:  I keep my toaster oven tray covered in foil.  Cuts down on clean up.  That and I have never quite figured out how to adequately clean that little thing.

If you have a frozen pastry setting on your toaster, fantastic!  If you have a toaster that is not equipped with such advanced technology, set it to a higher than normal toast.

This trick works with pancakes as well.  For re-heating those, I would recommend sticking with a toaster oven, as the pancakes tend to flop over and get stuck in the regular toaster.

And that's it.  My ultra-secret technique for making mornings a little easier.

What kinds of tips and tricks do you use? 1. 2.

Tidbit Thursday - Mastering Your Mornings

3.

Victorian French Toast

We had some overnight guests this weekend.  A couple of lovely chaps from our old church.  Great guys (did I mention they cleaned their own toothpaste out of the sink?)

Knowing that Sunday morning are hectic with just the five of us, I set out to put together my go-to, make ahead breakfast meal, Victorian French Toast.  This recipe actually originates from an old friend's mom.  Her version was actually in our town newspaper.  She's famous!

It's incredibly easy (and cheap!) to make

Pretty simple stuff, really.  Bread, eggs, milk, vanilla, white sugar, brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon, if you'd like.

 Melt some butter in the microwave.  Or if you're all rustic-like, the stove top.  Or, if it's August, just set it on the window sill for a few minutes.

In the bottom of a 9X13 pan, put in some brown sugar and the melted butter.  It should form a sort of thick slurry on the bottom of the pan

Mmmm, melted butter.

It should look kinda like this.

Here is my girl doing a quality assurance test.

I think it passed.

This is what will happen to your loaf of day old bread if you let your husband and 4 year old help.

See?  My girl knows what she's doing.  Maybe the husband is the problem.  You will need about a loaf of bread for a 9X13 pan.  Day old is great.  I had plain white, but I can imagine grainier breads would add a nice flavour and texture.

Next, the eggs.  How many?  It really depends on how egg-y you like your French toast.  Around here, it really varies with how many eggs are in the house and how many we need to use up and how long it is until grocery day again.

I'd say use between 3-6 large ones.  No less than three or you'll lose the puffing effect.  Too many and you'll end up with omelet.

 Wisk the eggs, a little white sugar, and some vanilla in a measuring cup.  Add enough milk to make about 8 cups of liquid.

For some real shazam, thoroughly wisk in some cinnamon.  Tasty stuff!

After you've poured the egg mixture over the bread, punch it down a little, just to make sure everything is covered and nice and soaked up

Cover it with foil and keep cool over night.  In our part of the woods, this time of the year, that means the garage will do just fine.  Otherwise, keep it in the fridge.

Bake it for about an hour at 350F.  Keep it covered for most of the baking time.  I take the foil off for the last 15 minutes or so, just to give it a good crunch on top.

And voila!  I have also seen blueberries tossed on top during the last few minutes, after the foil is removed.

The sauce on the bottom comes out delicious and yummy.  You won't even need maple syrup!  Of course, I won't tell if you add a little.


If there are left overs, I would suggest cutting them into serving size pieces for reheating.  It will keep for a couple of days.

1. 2.

Victorian French Toast

3.