Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Tower Cafe French Toast

This is a recipe that was in the Sacramento Bee for Tower Cafe's French Toast. I've made it a few times for holidays and it's pretty spot on. This is not an every days recipe, unless you have a really high metabolism. I'm making it for Christmas morning so I'll try and attach a picture.

The recipe includes calories. I'm not going to include them because if you're making this, you're not making a low calorie meal.

Tower Cafe French Toast (Taken directly from the Sacramento Bee)
Prep time: 35 min
Cook Time: About 10 min per batch.

Ingredients:
1 Loaf French bread (not Sourdough)
4 eggs
½ cup heavy or whipping cream
½ cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp. vanilla
Dash of salt
Butter for cooking surface
Whipped Butter (see next recipe)
Powdered sugar, syrup, fruit, optional toppings
Instructions:
Cut French bread at an angle to make six 1-inch-thick slices, roughly 3 inches by 6 inches.
Whisk eggs, cream, milk, vanilla, sugar and dash of salt together until uniform. Pour into a shallow pan and place the slices of bread in the batter. Let sit for 5 minutes. Turn over and let soak, covered, for 15-20 min or until batter has been absorbed, turning if needed.
This will keep well in the refrigerator for several hours if you have late risers of want to prepare it ahead of time.
Heat a griddle or shallow frying pan over medium-high heat. Butter the cooking surface generously and grill the battered bread until crispy and golden on each side. Tom with a scoop of whipped butter while the French toast is still hot.
Alternatively, top with powered sugar syrup, or fruit, or a combination of any of these, if desired, although this is very sweet on its own.
Whipped butter:
¼ c milk
½ pound butter, softened
Instructions:
Turn on the electric mixer to medium speed. Whip the butter for a few minutes Add a bit of milk to the butter if you’d like to make it fluffier and easier to spread. Beat milk and butter together until light and fluffy. Scrape solid butter pieces off the bowl’s sides with a spatula and continue mixing with the electric mixer until no solid butter is left and the butter is light and fluffy. Spoon the whipped butter into airtight containers. Cover the containers and refrigerate.


Sunday, November 13, 2011

Why not?

I've decided to read at least a book a month. I want to get my brain working a little bit better. I chose this list…
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/264.Books_that_everyone_should_read_at_least_once

There are many books on here that I have read and completely forgotten about so I'll read them again. There are also books I want to read with my daughter.

Hopefully I'll make it past #1.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Playroom

We have a smallish house. It fits us well and comes with a spacious backyard which was difficult to come by in Sacramento circa 2004. Slowly the house has been evolving to better fit our needs. With the arrival of Nora almost 2 years ago, our needs have changed and we've taken a major step in making a "kid friendly" home. My goal is to make a home where adults and kids can socialize, play and feel comfortable. I grew up in a home that was not very kid friendly and where it was difficult to have friends over. This home is going to be filled with creativity and love.

That being said we are turning our dining room into a playroom/eating area. Most of our house is carpeted and we need a room that can withstand spills and play. I've even started a pinterest page to gather ideas.

http://pinterest.com/mindab/ideas-for-our-playroom/

I've been taking my time trying not do rush through it like I normally do, but I only have 2weeks until my brother is going to come over and lay our floor. We painted today. It's blue, really blue. It may need some clouds.

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Inspired

I'm feeling so inspired since I discovered pinterest.com. We're in the middle of remodeling our kitchen/playroom and there are so many amazing ideas to do in the room to make it Nora friendly. I want to create a place for us to discover, play, create and enjoy ourselves. I'm hoping to have it done by Christmas.

Until then, I thought I would make my winter want-to list.
1. Keep up my healthier eating. (AKA stay away from fast food!)
2. Come up with an awesome Halloween costume.
3. Make a Gooble pumpkin. (and maybe Foofa too since I have pink spray paint)
4. Start my first winter garden.
5. Keep up with my physical therapy and finally be done with my leg issues.
6. Take Nora to Cleveland to meet her family, play in snow and look at Christmas lights.
7. Make a memorable play room for our family.
8. Take time to make a proper memorable playroom for our family. (AKA don't rush into it like I usually do.)
9. Get on a better exercise routine.
10. Do an art project with my students at least once a week.
11. Don't go crazy on spending for Christmas.
12. Pay off 2 bills.
13. Tutor to pay off said bills.
14. Send out awesome Christmas cards.

Monday, May 23, 2011

Art, Art, Everywhere

So I've been very busy with my Want-To list and learning about the world from the eyes of my daughter (with a little mommy-time thrown in to boot.)

I'm finishing up STAR testing with my second graders so I've been researching art blogs to get ideas to do with them the last 4 weeks of school. Here are a few with some really good ideas. I'll post pics after we do a few of them.

www.deepspacesparkle.com

www.origami-instructions.com

oodlesofart.blogspot.com

teachkidsart.blogspot.com

Saturday, May 7, 2011

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all my friends. I've been a mom for only a year. Here are some words of wisdom I learned I should have paid more attention to.

1. Put hats on the babies when they are small so when they're bigger, they'll be used to wearing them. (and not take them off in three seconds.)

2. Swaddle. Swaddle early and keep it up.

3. Babies are easy from 0-3months. (I personally think 3-6 are the glory months.)

4. Put the baby to bed earlier. They have a different schedule than your normal 11 pm bedtime.

5. Go out with your friends once in a while.

6. It is very important to have date night with your spouse.

7. Get out with the baby early.

I'm sure there's a million more, but I can't think of them.

Holy cow, how could I forget "Sleep when the baby sleeps." Seriously, let the laundry go. Underwear is light enough to carry a load of it while your still holding the baby. Buy paper plates for a few months. Splurge on a ROOMBA. For God's sake, sleep when the baby sleeps.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

There's a funny place called Tomales


We don't get to spend as much time on the coast as I would wish, but when we do, we usually go to the little town of Tomales. Tom's family has a great little house down there filled with 50+ years of family memories. This is Nora's second time down there and she did an excellent job of discovering everything.

She loved playing in the yard and especially loved climbing the stairs over and over again.

We took her to Bodega Head since it was too cold to go to the beach.



Another awesome part of the weekend was Burns and Ariel were our surprise guests. We escaped for an hour and stuffed ourselves silly with oysters.