Recipe: Helen Jane’s Sticky Baked French Toast

I went looking for this recipe in my archives and lost it. No tags, no titles, it’s gone. So thanks to Ann over at RecipeZaar who archived it for me to re-post and meta meta blogity blog blog blog.

From her description:
This is a delicious pan of french toast that is perfect for brunch. It is refrigerated overnight. I found this recipe at helenjane.com in 2005 and baked it for my family. Thanks Helen Jane, the family enjoyed it and I want to have it archived on the computer since I cannot find it on your site any longer.

Duly noted Ann!

Since the first time I posted this recipe the recipe has changed and become more custardy — because that’s what our family prefers. Note the extra butter, milk and eggs for maximum sticky awesome.

Helen Jane’s Sticky Baked French Toast Recipe

This recipe works best if you prepare the casserole dish the night before. The next morning, you just pop this tasty breakfast casserole into the oven. You could even do it — gasp – before your coffee.

Ingredients
1 loaf French bread, day old
1 stick unsalted butter
1 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons maple syrup (or corn syrup)
1 cup milk
8 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Whipped cream and strawberries

Directions
Cut the french bread into 1″ wide slices. I love to use leftover Cheesewhizzes or party bread for this.

In a medium sized saucepan, put maple syrup, butter and brown sugar. Heat over medium.
Stir until it all comes together and starts to bubble.

Carefully pour the hot, sticky mixture into a 13″ x 9″ baking dish.

Arrange the french bread over the mixture.

In a big bowl, beat together eggs, milk and vanilla until light colored and a little bubbly.

Pour the eggy, milky mixture over the bread (which is on the top of the hot, sticky mixture).

Cover the baking dish and refrigerate overnight. (note: You can do it just a few hours before you bake it, but it is much better if you do it the night before.).

The next morning
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put the french toast dish in the oven and bake for one delicious hour.

Loosen the sticky baked french bread from its hot, sticky bed and invert onto a platter.
Perfection.

Serve with whipped cream & strawberries!

Valentine's Breakfast of Love

The traditions I’m most excited to carry on from Mom are her breakfast celebrations.

Growing up, my mom decorated the table for four major non-holidays. We awoke to decorations and little wrapped gifts every Valentine’s day, St. Patrick’s Day, Three Kings Day and Halloween.

So now that I have my own girls, well, I see where this is going.

Last night in the low-memory hours before I collapsed into bed, I set the table.

Hypothetical Valentine Making Party

Those people with their sayings about, “Two kids aren’t just twice as much work…” were right.

My days zip by in a flurry of wiping, tucking and snuggling.

Recipe: Sweet and Sour “Wild Boar”

My husband’s one of the world’s biggest Lost fans.

Theoretical message board? He’s participated.
Dharma jumpsuit? He’s coveted it.
ARG? He’s played it.

So with the return of the show, it was only natural that we’d have some friends over for a viewing party.

To prepare, we printed out labels, cut them out and used double sided tape to create Dharma beer, wine and water.

We kept it low key, making the main course in the slow cooker and letting our guests bring dessert.
I made this awesome sweet and sour pork–er– wild boar — in the crock pot. We served our Sweet and Sour Wild Boar with a peanut Napa cabbage slaw and mango salad.

Thoughtful guests brought Coconut Pineapple ice cream and a pineapple for maximum desserty goodness.

Other ideas I’d wish we had time to incorporate include:
- Tablecloths made of tarp
- Coconut bowls
- Shrimp skewers with some appropriately tropical dipping sauce
- Tying napkins with twine to look like rope
- Tiny homemade raft place cards made with twigs and twine

Sweet and Sour Wild Boar

Ingredients:
1 yellow onion
1 red bell pepper
6″ ginger
6 garlic cloves
vegetable oil for the pan
1 can diced tomatoes
6 oz pineapple juice
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey
6 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
1 three pound bone-in shoulder roast made of wild boar or pork
Salt and pepper

Cut the onion into chunks,
cut the bell pepper into chunks,
cut the ginger into chunks and
smash the garlic and pull off the papery outsides.

Get out your food processor.
(I know, it’s a pain in the butt to lug and clean and all, but everything I make in that machine is top-of-head above all the other foods. Is it the (in)convenience factor? I don’t know. All I do know is that food processor=awesome food.)

Put the onion, bell pepper, ginger and garlic chunks in the bowl and press the pulse button 10 times. The vegetables should be chopped but not obliterated.

Heat a large saute pan/frying pan over medium high heat, add the vegetable oil and the vegetable mixture.
Stir and sizzle until soft, about 8 minutes.
(In the meantime, you can wash/put away that food processor, open the can of tomatoes and get out your other ingredients.)

Add the can of tomatoes, brown sugar, pineapple juice, honey, soy sauce and rice vinegar to the vegetable mixture. It will look like the picture to your left. Stir and simmer for another 2-3 minutes.

Your house will start to smell exotic.
No, not erotic.
Exotic.

Rinse and dry the pork. Salt and pepper the pork, if that’s your thing. Add the pork to the slow cooker. Pour the sauce over the pork.

Put the vegetable sauce mixture over the pork and step away.

I cook this at 8 – 10 hours on low, because really, isn’t the grand utility of the slow cooker that it can cook while you’re at work? And when recipes say, “add to slow cooker for 4 hours” I’m always a little sad. Four hours seems a perfectly awkward time to cook something in there.

No, I say, 8 – 10 hours on low is the way to go.

We served it on Hawaiian Sweet Rolls with the slaw and salad and felt tropical indeed.
Then we went outside to surround our house with ash.

Happy Lost viewing party!