French Toast

Fresh bread good. Stale bread better - and usually, way less expensive. There is nothing quite like pulling warm chunks off a fresh loaf to eat plain, but if you are going to do anything with the bread, even something as simple as slicing and toasting it, day old bread is easier to work with and is just as good as fresh. Dry bread absorbs the flavours of stuffing seasonings and bread pudding custards much more readily than fresh bread as well. One thing I really liked making this past summer was a bread salad using day old Parmesan sticks from my local bakery cut into pieces, toasted, and tossed with chopped tomatoes and a simple vinaigrette.

For French toast, beat two eggs with 2 tbs milk or cream in a shallow bowl and stir in 1 tsp vanilla infused sugar or plain sugar and half a teaspoon of salt. Coat four slices of at least day-old bread (I used whole grain bread) in the mixture, soaking it all up and wiping the bowl with the bread. Fry on both sides in a well greased pan over medium high heat. Eat with butter and jam or heated maple syrup - don't let cold, refrigerated syrup steal the warmth from your French toast. Serves 2.

Sophie of Sucré-Salé has a great looking oven baked, savoury version of French toast (Pain Perdu). I am really enjoying her blog - we don't usually associate French cooking with healthy food, but she is a dietician. I am planning to make her beet salad as well. Non-Francophones might be able to make it out with a page translate - pain perdu will come back literally as 'lost bread'.