Breakfast Time!

When the girls were little I was privileged to be apart of a wonderful group called Mothers Of Preschoolers aka, MOPS.

At MOPS I made life long friendships and one of those is with my friend, Cyndi Parra. Every meeting two of the tables were responsible for bringing breakfast items and one of these mornings my sweet friend Cyndi brought in a scrumptious casserole called French Vanilla Baked French Toast. It was so yummy...

Yesterday I mistakenly defrosted the loaf of Texas Toast which forced me to get on the ball & make some french toast which is the whole reason I bought that loaf of bread to begin with.

So...I got out my MOPS cookbook, looked up her recipe and got to making!

I didn't have any French Vanilla coffee creamer so I made some myself with a minor adjustment. I'll include that recipe next.

Cyndi's French Vanilla Baked French Toast

1 loaf French Bread (Texas Toast)
1 (16 oz) French Vanilla Coffee Creamer
7 eggs, divided
cinnamon & sugar


Prepare a 9x13 pan with nonstick cooking spray; set aside.

In a large bowl scramble 2 of the eggs & the whole bottle of coffee creamer. Tear the bread into bite size pieces & dip each piece into the creamer mixture. Arrange pieces in your prepared pan. Once you've used up all the creamer mixture, scramble up the remaining 5 eggs in the empty bowl. Pour them evenly over the pieces of bread. Sprinkle with cinnamon & sugar. Bake in a 350* oven for 30 minutes. Serve with or without syrup.

(If you like, you can prepare this the night before you need it. Remember, if you're using a glass pan or a stoneware baker, just pop it in, THEN turn on the oven & let the pan preheat with the oven; this will keep it from breaking. Just add 10 minutes to the cooking time!)

Enjoy!

If you're like me & do not keep flavored coffee creamer on hand here's a quick fix that's just as good but does not include all the crazy ingredients like, PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED SOYBEAN AND/OR COTTONSEED OIL or DIPOTASSIUM PHOSPHATE, DISODIUM PHOSPHATE, MONO- AND DIGLYCERIDES. What in Sam hill is all that stuff??? Geesh...

Here's my take on it and you can make it any flavor you want! Instead of making Vanilla flavored for the baked french toast I used MAPLE flavoring (with a hint of vanilla) and it was yummy!

So without further ado, here's my recipe:

Vanilla Coffee Creamer

1 (14oz) can sweetened condensed milk
28oz whole milk
2 Tbs. pure vanilla (or 1 1/2 Tbs MAPLE flavoring & 1/2 Tbs. vanilla)

In a large bowl pour the can of sweet milk. Be sure & scrape the can good of all that yumminess but DO NOT throw it away. After it's all in the big bowl add the flavoring; mix well. Now get that empty sweet milk can & fill it up with milk, add to bowl & repeat one more time; that should give you 28 ounces. Mix well with a wire whisk & serve with coffee or in a recipe like the one above. Keep refrigerated.

This recipes yields 4 cups of creamer. (you'll need 2 cups for the baked french toast)