Quick Fix – French Toast

Today’s Quick Fix takes us back to breakfast. Often for breakfast we find ourselves eating something quick like instant oatmeal or grabbing something at the local fast food joint. When we do have time to make a proper breakfast at home, we often fall back into familiar recipes that aren’t too complicated (bacon and eggs anyone?). Today I want to talk about a breakfast dish that I think many people find intimidating, but I think may be one of the easiest, if not the easiest, dishes to pull off: french toast. When I look at the spectrum of difficulty/complexity for breakfast dishes on one end I see things like eggs benedict (poaching eggs, making hollandaise sauce) and on the other I see toast and a boiled egg. I would put french toast right down at the very easy end on the spectrum, but it’s just fancy enough to feel really special when you make it.

You can make french toast with as few as 5 ingredients and you don’t need any special equipment–just a bowl, skillet, and spatula. Here’s what yo do:

4 thick slices of bread
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Find yourself 4 slices of nice thick bread. Italian bread, Hawaiian sweet bread, thick cut white bread would all work fine. As a matter of fact, you don’t need anything fancy for the bread (In a pinch I once made french toast using 9-grain whole wheat bread. Not the most decadent french toast I ever had, but actually still pretty tasty!). Also, bread that is just a touch stale works really well for french toast. It holds up better than soft, fresh bread.

Now, in a mixing bowl, beat two eggs, then add about a quarter cup of milk, a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla extract (about a half teaspoon). Mix everything together.

Heat a skillet over medium heat until it’s good and hot, add a little oil or butter, then dip a slice of bread into the mixture until it’s coated, then drop it into the skillet until it’s nice and golden on the first side. Flip to the other side until it’s golden as well. That’s it! French toast is ready. You can make several pieces and keep them warm until you are ready to serve in a 250 degree F oven. Top with your choice of butter, syrup, powdered sugar, fresh fruit, etc.

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