Breakfast Treats: French Toast

Weekend breakfasts were always a treat I looked forward to in college and grad school. In fact, it was often the highlight of the weekend. Mo's Diner in Hartford, Eggs N' Things in Honolulu, and Elmo's Diner and Mama Dip's Kitchen in Chapel Hill - just seeing the names of these places bring a smile to my face. Standing in line for sometimes hours at a time, the wait was part of the fun too. Powered by the free-flowing coffee and giggles over the happenings of the night before, weekend breakfasts were really an integral ritual for me back then.

I've tried to recreate a breakfast ritual here in San Jose too, but I guess times have changed. No one calls me at 10 AM to wake me up to go to breakfast anymore - instead, I am up by 8 AM, either furiously finishing up my work from the night before or heading out for a long run or my pick-up rugby game. In place of the gossip from the night before are talks of what to make for dinner and which grocery store I need to go before the crowd gets there too. But once in a while, I crave that breakfast scent of cinnamon and nutmeg, eggs and batter, and pots after pots of coffee. And when I felt that way this weekend, I opened up the fridge to find all the necessary ingredients for one of my favorites from those days waiting in line for the perfect start of the day...

French Toast:
2 eggs
1/4 cup Vanilla Soy Milk
A healthy amount of nutmeg (fresh ground is sooo much better!)
A generous portion of cinammon

Trader Joe's Sprouted Whole Wheat Bread (this was key for the aboslutely wonderful nutty flavor and chewy texture.)

Beat eggs well and add remaining ingredients. Soak bread in batter thoroughly. Spray heated skillet with canola oil (I tried it without any oil at first and the bread lost its nice egg layer...). Cook on one side until the face-up side starts to look less wet. Flip, cook about the same amount of time (I like my French Toast mostly dry with just a touch of wetness left in the middle).

I ate my French Toast with a kiwi-mango-papaya fruit salad, which was very satisfyingly good, despite my missing the rest of breakfast ritual...

My heart is with the Belgians...

when it comes to waffles. Or not really. The 'Belgian waffle' that I like is not authentically Belgian at all, I found out. I guess the authentic Belgian waffle is more like a cookie and doesn't have that heavenly combination of airy and crispy that I love so much. It figures, since I had my first Belgian waffle in Japan, and Japan is the land of fusion cuisine, where authenticity is tossed by the way side to suit the Japanese trends and tastes. Belgian waffles are THE waffles in Japan, and I didn't know that there were any other kind of waffle until I came to the US and saw Eggo-waffles. Those are not the waffles of my childhood, and they will never have a place in my heart. Interestingly, Belgian waffles are relative newbies in the US waffle scene, according to the waffleweek.com website. I don't know, the flat waffles just don't do it for me...



I love all things crispy, and the Belgian waffle can have the perfect ratio of crispness to substance (when done right - or right for me). I make mine with mega-super whipped egg whites and some flour with baking powder. I follow Alicia's recipe fairly closely, but I do add a lot more vanilla than she suggests. My secret, though, is that I super-bake 'em. I let my waffle maker beep at least twice and I make sure that the bases are paper thin & crispy like corn flakes and the crests are sturdy and hollow enough to produce an echo when I do my knock/tap test. That's how crispy I like them.

The Papa Bear has recently become quite smitten with my waffle maker, and he's been making waffles for the little sisters on a number of occasions. I was recently hanging around the house when he was making them and was lucky enough to partake. I eat mine with whipped cream and sliced fruits, which the Papa Bear and the little sisters have also adopted. He infuses each of his waffles with love for his daughters, and as they say, the secret ingredient for the best dishes is always love. It's clear how much the little girls enjoy the waffles by the amount they consume and the smiles it puts on their faces.



The Papa Bear's modification is to use Crisco instead of melted butter, and he doesn't give it the two, three beep baking time - these waffles were airy like the best American Belgian waffles and tasty in their own right - no doubt - but a bit on the pale side without that crunch/crisp factor I've come to love so much in the waffles of my childhood. Favorite foods are so closely intertwines with our own experiences and memories, and I guess my heart is with the Japanese Belgians...

Is it a biscuit or is it a scone?

Weekends are for making treats. It makes the weekends so much more special when there is something yummy that I can make/have only on the weekends. Breakfast is a very good opportunity for these treats, and this weekend, I made homemade jam/jelly and biscuits/scones. This seems like an appropriate follow-up to my strawberry shortcake post, since American strawberry shortcakes are made with biscuits...

Biscuits come in many forms with many innards and many shapes. I've had drop bisucits, cut out biscuits, biscuits with dill, biscuits with buttermilk, biscuits with cheese, biscuits by Bisquik - the list is endless. Because I tend to prefer a lower butter content - no, no, it's not driven by any fear for fat - I really do prefer the taste of less butter, unless of course when I was eating 'toast' in Paris with Parisian butter - something about that butter, it was SOOOO good! I'm digressing. Back to the biscuit.

My friend, Colleen, is Australian, and has a totally different definition of a biscuit. We recently concluded that my biscuits were really just another name for what she calls scones. Our scones are much drier than biscuits and I find them to be too crumbly and lacking in gentle tenderness I look for in my morning pastry. I learned how to make biscuits when I was working at the bakery in the co-op I belonged to in NC. I now have a very light drop biscuit recipe, which is crunchy yet moist, cakey yet bready. It is surprisingly simple and so very tasty. And they have a wonderful aroma as they put on their brown coats, preapring to awe you at showtime when the oven door opens.

Here's my first recipe post:

1 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
pinch salt
1/2 cup milk
2 tbp butter, melted

Mix it all up - dries and wets separately, then with each other - and bake in 450F oven for 15-20 min, or if you actually have an oven that hits 450F (mine is about 15 yrs old and doesn't get hot), maybe even less time. This recipe makes 6 small biscuits, perfect for one meal with a few friends.

That's all there is! And it's so very good, esp. with home-made jelly/jam (Colleen calls them one thing and we call it another, but my Japanese brain is refusing to register which one is which right now...), or with scrambled eggs, sausages, and the Magic Red Sauce from Heinz.