Moving up in the world... and Baked French Toast

It has been a while since I have posted, but things have been busy.
1. coaching has wrapped up
2. grad school is officially finished (yay)
3. stopped raining long enough to finally do some gardening
4. its spring, more specifically May... busiest time of year for me

As the month comes to a close, I am finding that I finally have time to get in some writing. I have been cooking up a storm, however have just not gotten around to posting about it (sigh).

But before the food... I have finally joined Twitter! I don't know that I will be much better about Tweeting than posting, but my sister has convinced me that I must be involved in all versions of social media if I actually want people to read this.

Now for the food, delayed but here none-the-less: Baked French Toast

This is one that I thought up around Christmas and is kind of a combo of French Toast and Cheesecake and tastes like a cheese danish. I made it for a Royal Wedding breakfast and we ate it with our cup of tea.

Ingredients:

Filling:
16 oz Cream cheese softened
1 egg
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Beat together until smooth

Rasin or Cranberry (only available at the holidays) Bread

Dipping Mix:
2 Eggs
1 1/2 Cups milk or half-n-half
1 tsp. cinnamon
Beat together in a shallow bowl or dish to dip from.

Directions:
Grease an 8x8 pan (can double to use a 13x9 but the bread fits well in the 8x8 to do three layers)
Make a sandwich with two slices of bread and the creamcheese filling in the middle. (I guess you could also do a layer to dipped bread, then a layer of filling and another layer of dipped bread).
Dip both sides of the sandwich in the dipping mix.
Place the dipped sandwich bread in the bottom of the pan. Do this until the bottom of the pan is covered with 4 sandwiches.
Spread the rest of the filling (you should have about half left) over the sandwiches in the pan.
Dip four peices of bread on both sides in the dipping mix then place over the filling. Dump any remaining dipping mix over the top of the bread in the pan.

Bake in the oven at 350 for about a half hour.... I am not 100% on the time... it may need less, it may need more. I would just keep checking to be sure. It will be done when a knife comes out clean (there will be cheese on there, but not runny egg mix)

It is good right out of the oven, but I like it better cold the next day.

Inception

Its time.

I have been contemplating this blogging business since I had to start one for class and now after reading some really great blogs, have decided to try my hand at it. I don't know how successful I will be, or even if anyone will care, but I am gonna give it a try.

So while I may not be the most entertaining or interesting person out there, I hope to share stuff that is. I like to cook and bake, craft, as well as read, garden, and most importantly hang with friends generally in a setting that involves alcohol.

I like to use my co-workers as guinea pigs for my baking and tonight as a way to avoid doing my grad work (something that this also helps with as well) I decided to make some most delicious Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins that I found on an excellent baking blog. The original recipe was for a cake, but you just cut the time down to 20 minutes for the muffins. They turned out great and I will be taking them into work tomorrow, I am sure to the pleasure of my work friends.