100 Days of Pinterest: Day 20 - Crunchy Baked French Toast Sticks

Here I go again with another Pinterest recipe. It's just so easy to pick a recipe for part of the Pinterest challenge. There are so many good recipes and images available at our fingertips, why not try them?
The Pin I tried for day twenty was simple and really affordable. I made some Crunchy Baked French Toast with Strawberry Syrup. I like fresh strawberries, but let's face it, they aren't really in season in Ohio at this point. I could purchase some of the ones we get shipped in from California, but those ones are so bitter and never really taste the same as the locally grown berries we have around here. So, I went ahead an purchased a bag of frozen strawberries. This way my boys wouldn't dip into them either, because no berries are safe in my house.

The recipe was basically the same as regular french toast with the addition of a crunchy cereal coating. I went ahead and purchased the Mom's Best Oats and Honey Blend. Let me tell you, if you haven't tried Mom's Best, you need to. If you are into the whole Gluten Free thing, they have those options available too. Mom's Best Cereals are preservative free and there are no artificial flavors. They are environmentally friendly too.

Back to the Crunchy Baked French Toast. This stuff was super easy to make. I've included the recipe below. Like I said before, I used frozen strawberries for my syrup. You can use whatever you like...including a different berry. I'm sure you could even make a mixed berry syrup as well.

The recipe states it serves two, so increase the mixture for how many people you'll be feeding. I doubled the recipe for my home. I had extra french toast sticks afterwards, so I froze them for a later snack or breakfast.

Crunchy Baked French Toast Sticks With Strawberry Syrup

Author: Lovely Little Kitchen

Serves: 2

Ingredients:

Strawberry Syrup

• 1 1/2 cups chopped strawberries, stems removed
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 c. water
• 1 teaspoon cornstarch.

Crunchy French Toast Sticks

• 3 slices Texas Toast bread, cut into three strips each
• 2 eggs
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups crushed Honey Bunches of Oats Cereal
• powdered sugar

Directions:

Strawberry Syrup

1. In a medium saucepan on medium high heat, combine strawberries, sugar, lemon juice, and water. Cook until bubbly. Turn heat down to medium, and boil for 3-4 minutes, until the strawberries are soft. Use an immersion blender to puree the strawberries, and then add the cornstarch. Continue to boil for 6-8 more minutes, or until the sauce has thickened. Cool slightly before serving, and keep leftovers refrigerated.
2. Use leftovers for topping ice cream or yogurt, or for making strawberry milkshakes.

Crunchy French Toast Sticks

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a shallow bowl, whisk eggs, milk, cinnamon and vanilla together.
3. Place crushed cereal into another small bowl.
4. Quickly dip the strips of bread into the egg mixture, and then into the crushed cereal, one by one. Press the cereal onto the bread to help it stick to all sides. Place the dipped bread onto a greased or Silpat lined baking sheet.
5. Spray the top of each strip with cooking spray, or drizzle with a little melted butter if you prefer. This will help it get nice and crunchy!
6. Bake for 12 minutes, and dust with powdered sugar. Serve with strawberry syrup or maple syrup.

Take care!
NB

100 Days of Pinterest: Day 4 - Strawberry-Banana Roll-up

If there is one perk to this 100 days of Pinterest challenge, it's the fact that we are eating a lot of different things. Last night's homemade potato chips and the apple pork roast turned out fabulous. I'll be making both again in the future.

Today was a pretty great day in our house. My husband started a Pinterest account. I don't think a lot of men know how great Pinterest is. There are so many DIY posts that can be handy little weapons in the hands of the right men (women have known this forever, we're smart like that). Once I started showing my husband all of the cool things that can be done with skids and ideas we can use to remodel parts of our home he was hooked. I can't wait to see what sorts of things he finds to create.

I took it easy today, because my MS is flaring up a bit. When I was in the shower this morning I got a really bad pain in my right eye, followed by some color loss. I could see perfectly out of my left eye and everything I looked at from my right eye looked dull and really weird. As the day progressed, it slowly got better. Now, I only have a little bit of a difference. It was pretty scary for me, because I've never experienced vision problems with my MS.

Enough of my MS woes, lets get back to my Pinterest challenge.  This morning I made all of us these incredible strawberry, banana, peanut butter, granola, and strawberry preserves roll-ups using Flatout wraps. All of my guys thought they were great and really filling. They were easy to make too. As you can see in the pictures they look like a peanut butter fruit pizza before they're rolled. I rolled them from the strawberry side over and they stayed shut perfectly. Instead of buying a big ol' box of granola, I purchased the store brand of crunchy granola bars (similar to the Nature Valley type) and crushed them in the wrapper before I opened it. I lightly coated the wrap in peanut butter, put some strawberry preserves on the right side topped with the strawberry slices, sprinkled some granola on the strawberries, and then added the bananas to the other side. Then I rolled them up and cut them for easy handling. Easy peasy!


Not sure what I have in store for tomorrow, but I'm sure I'll have fun trying it. I'm thinking I may be making some coconut oil lotion. Hopefully it works! Don't forget to head over to Pinterest and follow me (click here). You can find me on Facebook too.

Take care!
NB