It's breakfast for dinner.

At least once a week I get on the mood for breakfast food for dinner.  Whether it be waffles, pancakes, crepes and this week french toast, all yummy and cozy on a cold winter night.

I used a good loaf of challah bread, and had it sliced at the bakery.  I wish they could make slightly thicker slices but it seems the bakery has one size fits all slicing.

It may sound silly to some people, but I actually use a recipe for french toast.  On my own I never know ratio of egg to milk, is my batter to think or thin?  So once again I go to my trusty America's Test Kitchen Cookbook because they have worked out all the kinks for me.

Recipe


8 slices quality white sandwich bread
6 Tbsp butter
1 1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
2 Tbsp sugar
2 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup flour.


Melt 2 Tbsp butter and whisk it together with milk, eggs, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, and salt.  Slowly whisk in the flour until smooth.


Soak bread 2 slices at a time in the batter.  In the meanwhile, melt 1 Tbsp butter at a time in the non-stick skillet to cook the french toast.  Let excess batter drip off of bread before putting into the pan.  Cook about 2 1/2 minutes on each side, or until golden brown.


Serve with warmed maple syrup.

Now, there a few things I changed in this recipe.  The milk originally called for whole milk, I only had 1% and that worked fine.  The flour called for all -purpose flour and I used whole wheat.  I also left out the salt because I used salted butter, I never even buy unsalted butter.  The original recipe also called for drying out the bread in the oven prior to soaking it in the batter, I am just too lazy for that extra step.

Even with my changes to the already tweaked ATK recipe it was a huge hit at our house, and it made more than enough to freeze for future quick breakfasts.

Crockpot Oatmeal

I pretty much like anything that contains oatmeal, mostly baked goods.  I had been craving oatmeal for breakfast for some time now, but the instant oatmeal had been in the cabinet for so long it tasted like the plastic package it was in.  What a let down.

So from there I browsed the internet for an oatmeal recipe that I could throw in the crockpot at night before I went to bed and wake up to a yummy hot breakfast.  There were many recipes out there, most of which had dried fruit, lots of sugar and made with half-and-half or cream.  I am trying to watch what I eat so I didn't want to take the health benefits of oatmeal and cover them with cream and sugar.  

I finally came across the right one for me, thank goodness I wrote it down that night because I had been unable to find it again to give that person credit, sorry.

Recipe

1/2 cup steel cut oats

1 cup low fat milk

2 cups water

1 tea salt

1 Tbsp butter

Put all of the ingredients into a heat safe bowl.  You are going to place this bowl into the crockpot and set the crockpot on low.  Pour water into the crockpot around the heat safe bowl about half way up the bowl.  Cover and go to bed.  About 8 hours later, because you should get 8 hours of sleep a night, your oatmeal will be ready.

I get 4 servings out of this, and each serving is 3 Points Plus on Weight Watchers.  Whatever toppings I add are additional.

This made enough oatmeal for me for 4 days.  I just put the leftovers in the fridge, and heated up my portion every morning in the microwave.  It reheated really well.  I added a spoonful of toasted walnuts and some maple syrup to flavor mine just the way I like it.