Recipe

Good morning!

One of the great things that’s come out of my leaving the workforce to focus more on being a mom is my learning to become a morning person. Waking up before 8AM has always been a challenge for me.

You would think that I’d be up and about by 7AM at the latest considering my 9AM clock in time at the office. But in truth, I’d be lucky to be out of bed and functional before 8:30. That explains why I was always late for work.

It wasn’t as bad when I started working close to home as it was when I would report to a Makati office. But anyway, enough about my delinquent past, after all I think I’ve been making up for it in recent weeks.

I now typically get up – as in functioning and moving about, not just awake – between 5:30 and 6AM! Can you imagine that? Yeah, never thought I’d be able to do that either. But my weekdays have been starting out that early for the last two months, with, of course, the occasional lazy morning exception.

Since I’ve been up so early, I’ve actually learned to start my day by eating breakfast. Yay! I think this is a tremendous breakthrough from having started my mornings with a hurried cup of coffee for the last five or so years. I’ve never been a morning person, so this is a definite first for me.

The only downside is I find myself tired and sleepy by 6PM, but amazingly I manage to pull through until after the little guy is fast asleep. Next up on my agenda is finding out how to have more energy throughout the day, and I already know that the answer is exercise. Lol.

So anyway, the point of this post is that I prepared a really great breakfast for my kiddo today. We both love French Toast, and I thought I’d make ours a little more exciting in the form of (his) Cheesy and (my) Milky French Toasts.

Of course, this is nothing more than cheese spread or condensed milk sandwiched in between two slices of bread, dipped in egg and milk and cooked with a little margarine (I use margarine because I don’t like the taste of butter *gasp!*).

I tried the cheesy version once with sliced cheese and found that it was tough keeping the bread slices together when dipping and flipping, so I shifted to cheese spread. The milky version is inspired by my oh so favorite Milk Toast from Kopi Roti but with the condensed milk sandwiched instead of on top of the bread. I love condensed milk. Uh-huh, this is why I’m fat.

I also prefer to use frozen old bread for French Toast, since it doesn’t go all soggy on me. I usually place old bread in the freezer straight away for mornings like this one. 

Cheesy and Milky French Toast

You will need:

• Frozen Sliced Bread – I used both wheat and white bread, mostly ends!
• Cheese Spread – I used Cheez Whiz
• Condensed Milk – I used Carnation Condensada

• Two Eggs
• About 1/3 Cup of Milk – I used Magnolia low fat milk
• Plus: Margarine and Pancake Syrup!

Step-By-Step:

1. Whisk the milk and eggs together in a bowl until it becomes pale yellow and frothy.
2. Spread condensed milk or cheese spread between two slices of bread. Don’t put too much or it will run over the sides of the bread and make a mess in your pan.
3. Dunk the sandwiches into the egg and milk mixture. You will need to soak these a little longer than usual because there are two slices of bread that you need to moisten, plus the bread slices are frozen.
4. Heat a frying pan, spread some margarine (or butter, if that’s what you prefer), wait for it to sizzle then place the bread on top. I like to put a little bit more margarine on the slice that’s facing up so that it browns nicely when I flip it.
5. Brown to your liking, and you’re done!

I like my French Toast extra toasted, so it may look overdone to you, but it’s just right for me. So sorry for the out-of-focus photos. The Blackberry camera sucks bigtime.

Serve hot with more butter or margarine (if you wish, but I don’t add any more) and topped with pancake syrup!

Enjoy!