Pioneer Woman's Baked French Toast

My family loves breakfast. My daughter's favorite food is anything breakfast, and given the fact getting her to eat dinner is always a fight, I decided to make some breakfast for dinner the other night. I made Pioneer Woman's Baked French Toast. One of the main reasons I love this recipe, is that you can assemble it the night or day before and then just pop it in the oven when you get home.  The other reason I love this recipe is all of the ingredients are things you have at home. The only thing I usually don't have on hand is heavy whipping cream and I have even substituted milk for the cream and it turned out just as delicious.
This recipe is also great for potlucks and brunches. Super easy, Super delicious, and Super crowd pleasing.

 You start off put chopping (into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes) up a loaf of sourdough or Italian bread. I usually buy whatever is the cheapest at the grocery store- ya know they have those deals where you can get like a loaf for a $1. Throw the cubes into a greased 9 x 13 pan.
Next up is the very difficult task of whisking eggs, milk, cream, sugars and vanilla. Don't ask me why but I hate whisking lots of eggs. It makes me crazy and I feel like they never completely get whisked together, oh well such is life. 

When that mixture is all whisked together, you dump it (evenly) on top of the bread cubes. I usually try and make sure every cube gets covered. This would be the point that you can wrap it up and put it in the fridge to bake later. Or you can bake it right away, your choice- either way DELICIOUS!! If you do bake it right away, do not forget the most important part which is the butter/brown sugar/Cinnamon crumble mixture that makes this whole thing...

 This is the one and only time I really use the pastry cutter. Quite frankly the only reason I bought a pastry cutter was for this recipe. By all means you can use a fork and chop-a-chop-a but ya know I try and be cool.  Sprinkle that mixture ontop of your bread cubes, and bake that baby off!! Finished product is an awesome crunchy, creamy breakfast treat. I usually make up some bacon to go with it, and that's it! Pioneer Woman suggests warming up syrup and fresh blueberries for a topping, but "Ain't nobody got time for that" in my house!!! ENJOY!!

Baked French Toast

• FRENCH TOAST
• Butter, For Greasing
• 1 loaf Crusty Sourdough Or French Bread
• 8 whole Eggs
• 2 cups Whole Milk
• 1/2 cup Heavy Cream
• 1/2 cup Sugar
• 1/2 cup Brown Sugar
• 2 Tablespoons Vanilla Extract 
• Topping
• 1/2 cup Flour
• 1/2 cup Firmly Packed Brown Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon Salt
• Freshly Grated Nutmeg (optional)
• 1 stick Cold Butter, Cut Into Pieces

Instructions

For the French toast: Grease the baking pan with butter. Tear the bread into chunks, or cut into cubes, and evenly distribute in the pan. Crack the eggs in a big bowl. Whisk together the eggs, milk, cream, granulated sugar, brown sugar and vanilla. Pour evenly over the bread. Cover the pan tightly and store in the fridge until needed (overnight preferably). Or you can make it and bake it right away---delicious no matter what!
For the topping: Mix the flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, salt and some nutmeg in a separate bowl. Stir together using a fork. Add the butter and with a pastry cutter, and mix it all together until the mixture resembles fine pebbles. Store in a plastic bag in the fridge.
When you're ready to bake the casserole, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the casserole from the fridge and sprinkle the topping over the top. Bake for 45 minutes for a softer, more bread pudding texture or for 1 hour-plus or more for a firmer, crisper texture.

So I decided to start a blog...

So I decided to start a blog:

Why? Who the hell knows? I juggle many many many things in my life and I feel like I should always have some type of project to do. What better than a blog?? Everyone on Pinterest has one? And I am like the Pinterest Queen. Planning recipes, dream houses, vacations, craft projects, home decor.....only problem is I have no money to do all these things!! LOL

However, my New Year's Resolution was to be more organized in 2015. And Pinterest has helped me do this. And I have learned that meal prep, meal planning, and freezer meals have saved my life! HELL YES! Between working 40 hours a week, and Nursing School, and raising a 6 year old, and a 16 year old, and a husband....I need a lot of saving!

So I found some really great articles on Pinterest about Freezer Meals and I came across this....12-easy-freezer-meals-2-hours. It was a life saver! I was able to put together 9 different crockpot meals in about an hour. However, I had to make some alterations because the Hubby hates chicken. :(

I put the ingredients in the Gallon Sized Freezer bags and I wrote on the bags how long to cook on high and low and wrote what the recipe was in the bag- totally helped! And I have come to the conclusion, that you can pretty much freeze any type of crockpot meal.

So from the dinner category I moved to Breakfast! My daughter, Olivia brings her breakfast to eat at school in the morning. (Because her crazy mother has to be at work at 7 am!)  So I have to pack her a breakfast every morning. Long story short- the mom in me started to feel bad when she was eating Pop Tarts loaded with sugar every morning. So I decided to switch it up. I made her pancakes! I made an entire box of pancakes (following the directions on the box) let them cool completely (so they don't stick together when they are freezing) and stacked them in a gallon sized freezer bag.

1. The kid loves pancakes.
2. Super cheap- box of pancake mix cost me about $1.78 and made tons of pancakes.
3. It literally takes me two minutes in the morning to grab some pancakes out of the freezer bag, pop it in container for transport to school and microwave it . 

I found this great pin on pinterest about basically doing the same with french toast and making your own French Toast Sticks. Awesome idea! 

So while we are talking about breakfast, the hubby brings breakfast every morning on the way to work. Sometimes I am a good productive wife, and I make a bunch of different things for him to grab-n-go. Other times, the lady at the Starbucks drive thru takes care of him. Well, I got my shit together and made him some Mexican Breakfast Bowls. 

I originally got the idea from a pin for Breakfast Bowls. However, the hubby loves the spice! So I made the country potatoes and added some more yumminess!

I put the potatoes in the bottom of the bowl, added some chorizo that I cooked up, jarred salsa, shredded mexican cheese, and scrambled eggs....HOLLA! You got a breakfast bowl!! I used an entire carton of eggs, which isn't bad because I made 6 bowls aka 2 per bowl. I used a thing of chorizo, which isn't bad because when you break it up and cook it- there's not that much. 

I'm sure you could freeze these but he ate them up so quick, they stayed in the fridge.
It was a nice change for him from the Starbucks Drive Thru, and the Breakfast Burritos that I normally make and freeze for him. I will post those later :)
I think that is good for the blogging now.