Pumpkin French Toast for Thanksgiving Morning

From Daryl aka Avery

THE SPICES OF LIFE

There’s something about the holiday season that just brings out the yum factor. I love pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread and gingerbread. Perhaps it’s the spices used. I adore cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Do you know how good these spices are for the body?

It’s been found that half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day significantly reduces blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes. It also reduces triglyceride, LDL cholesterol, and total cholesterol levels among this group. It can also relieve pain in joints and muscles.

Nutmeg can help you sleep. It can help ease anxiety and calm muscle spasms.

Ginger is good for calming the intestinal tract and also has anti-inflammatory properties.

Calm, calm, calm. See the trend?

So during the holidays, stay calm by dosing up on fun foods (that we don’t seem to cook the rest of the year) and savor the spices that might just enhance your life.

For today’s share: Pumpkin French Toast.  I found this recipe in a magazine. I honestly can’t remember which one. Do you keep all your recipe magazines or do you snip and clip like I do? Oops. So I don’t know to which to attribute it. Sorry, folks. Probably Food Network.

Now, this French toast is baked. Baked, you say? Yes. The great thing is it can be made the night before and cooked the next morning. How easy is that? It taste like pumpkin pie with maple syrup.  Note: I made it with gluten-free bread (for me), but it can be made with regular bread. The only thing that changes in the recipe in either regard is the bread choice. How cool is that?

Enjoy!

Pumpkin French Toast 

(easy bake;
regular or gluten-free)

Ingredients:

(serves 4)

8 slices bread (use gluten-free if needed * the rest of the recipe is gluten-free)

Cream Cheese filling:

3-5 tablespoons cream cheese

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon salt

Pumpkin Mixture:

2 eggs

1/2 cup half and half

3 tablespoons sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 cup pumpkin puree

2 tablespoons butter

whipped cream for topping

Directions:

Grease an 8 x 8 pan.

Beat cream cheese with sugar, vanilla, and salt. 

Set 4 of the bread slices into the 8 x 8 pan. [They will be squished. It’s okay.] Tops each slice with 1/4 of the cream cheese filling and sprea dit out.  Top with another slice of bread.

Make the pumpkin mixture by beating the eggs. Add the half and half, sugar, spices, and pumpkin puree. Mix well. Pour the mixture over the bread in the 8 x 8 pan.

Top each quarter with a half tablespoon of butter.

Cover with saran or foil and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, turn the oven on to 400 degrees F. Remove the saran or foil and bake the French toast for 25-30 minutes.

Cut into quarters. Serve with warm maple syrup and whipped cream.  (Note: the whipped cream will melt quickly!)

For those who are curious, here's an update of Sparky. 2 weeks in our household and we are definitely "owned."

Getting longer by the day!

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Next up: 

Days of Wine and Roquefort Feb 2014, preorder here

Inherit the Word March 2014, preorder here

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