French Toast

Both suffering from a debilitating case of jetlag, Shane came over at 830am this morning for breakfast. While Shane had only arrived the night before, I was going on day 5 of irregular sleeping patterns. For breakfast, I made us some french toast with stale rye bread I found in the pantry (in addition to home fries, fried eggs, leftover bourguignon and mimosa's). To use up the leftover apple slices from the galette the night before, I served the toasts with a side of sauteed apples that had been flambeed with cognac.

The view from the dining room. Good Morning New York!

2 eggs
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon of cinnamon

1 teaspoon of all-spice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 thick slices of 2-day-old bread, better if slightly stale
Butter

Maple syrup

2 apples, peeled cored and thinly sliced

1 tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1 tablespoon calvados or cognac

For Toast:

Beat eggs, milk, cinnamon all-spice and vanilla together. Pour into a shallow bowl.

Dip each slice of bread into the egg mixture, allowing bread to soak up some of the mixture. Melt some butter (or use vegetable oil) over a large skillet on medium high heat. Add as many slices of bread onto the skillet as will fit at a time. Fry until brown on both sides, flipping the bread when necessary.

For Apples:

Melt butter in skillet, add apples and brown sugar and saute on medium heat until soft, about 3-5 minutes . Remove skillet from flame, add calvados or cognac and ignite with fire. Once aflame, return skillet to stove till the alcohol has evaporated, then transfer to serving plate.

Serve the french toast hot with butter or maple syrup, apples on the side.

Serves 1-2. Double the recipe for 4 people.