Bread and Butter Pudding

We are experiencing sweet tooth for the last several days. To satisfy the craving, I initially planned of making a “maja blanca” or Filipino white pudding but for some reasons, I can’t set the rhythm of starting the preparation. The other day, I purchased full ingredients for a single mixing of “leche flan” or caramel custard but still, even with the thought of the appetizing dish, I can’t shift myself into a cooking mode. :) I felt too lazy to even make the caramel syrup, so as expected I remained unable to prepare the luscious crème caramel until now. But after some contemplation and serious reevaluation though, I finally realized that the problem is that I am afflicted by a virus called “DITS”.

Yes, you heard it right, I have been suffering a minor case of “Do-It-Tomorrow-Syndrome” ……… wait …… based on the way I’m posting in Reel and Grill over the past few months, make that a chronic case of “DITS”. :-) Since I diagnosed it by myself ……… of course, I have to treat it by myself …… with force if necessary. :-)

This bread and butter pudding is probably my antiserum …… my salvation of sort. Firstly because it is so good that it could well please our sweet dish wanting. Secondly, it is so easy to do that I’ll need minimal effort to undertake it. And, lastly, we have a fridge full of several days-old sliced bread and lots of fresh milk. All together, it makes the perfect condition forceful enough to finally eradicate the unwanted syndrome. :-)

 As a backgrounder, bread and butter pudding is a bread-based dessert made by arranging layers of sliced or cubed bread (traditionally left-over or stale ones), added with butter and scattered with raisins and dried fruits in an oven dish into which mixture of egg, milk (or cream), sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon powder, vanilla and other spices, is poured. It is then baked in an oven until the mixture has set and crust is slightly browned on top. Some people may serve it with custard or cream, but often the pudding under the crust is moist enough to be eaten without sauce.

Chicken and Pork Empanada

Folded pastry around meat and veggie stuffing is probably the most accurate definition of my true Filipino comfort food. It is among the simple gastronomic treat that immediately reconnects me with home ……… family, relatives, childhood friends and everything in between. It is an ordinary snack which every bite for me is capable of educing flashes of happy thoughts, retrieving golden memories and subsequent feeling of divine-like contentment. It could somehow serve as a mother’s tender touch or spouse’s caress that provides warmth, consolation, sense of security and peaceful refuge even when you are actually so far away from home. I am referring to the tasty stuffed bread called “empanada”. :-)

Popular in many countries of Latin America, southern part of Europe and South East Asia particularly the Philippines, empanada refers to the stuffed bread or pastry, either baked or fried, made by folding a rich buttery dough or bread patty around the stuffing. The fillings usually composed of varieties of meats, seafood, vegetables or even sweetened fruits. It can be served as a small meal, a starter before a meal, finger foods in parties, dessert after a meal in case of sweet fruits fillings, morsel while watching TV or movies or sporting events and snack at any time of the day.

There are many international variations. In Argentina, their empanadas are often served at parties and festivals. The fillings are mainly chicken or beef spiced with cumin and paprika. In Brazil, they have fried turnovers filled with seasoned ground meat, shredded chicken, cheese, seasoned ground shrimp, hearts of palm and various other fillings. In Jamaica, they have their Jamaican patty that contains various fillings and spices baked inside a flaky shell, often tinted golden yellow with an egg yolk mixture or turmeric. Puerto Rico’s “empanadilla” is a small empanada that uses flour or cassava flour dough and lard. In Spain, empanadas are often made from thin, flexible, but resilient wheat pastry. The variable filling includes tuna, sardines and chorizo in a tomato puree, garlic and onion sauce.

However, the type I will be preparing here is of course the Filipino empanada. It usually contains ground pork or beef or chicken meat or chopped shrimps, diced potato, green peas, chopped onion and raisins in sweetish-buttery dough made from wheat flour or all-purpose flour. The dough can either be doughy or flaky and plain or covered in bread crumbs. The empanada can either be baked or deep fried with the former being my preferred method as it does not involve a degree of oil accumulation to the finish product. The golden brown tasty crust without the hint of fat (from frying) complemented with the sweetish meaty fillings is such a delightful delicacy to me. :-)

Orange Cake, Easy and Zesty

I love oranges. I really do! Like “ponkan” (a type of tangerine almost the size and color of an orange), apple and banana, orange is among the regular fruits I eat to curtail off food cravings during late nights when I have to stay awake either writing, blogging, watching movies or browsing the internet. I can consume lots of it just before going to bed and not have the feeling of guilt or being bloated. For this reason, I maintain a good stock of orange (or “ponkan” if available) inside the fridge which I regularly replenish every Saturday.

This practice of keeping a steady stock of orange in our home became very handy one day when I needed and wanted to bake a cake. While I would usually prepare either banana cake or carrot cake during such a time, the absence of banana and carrots from our pantry that day forced me (in a good way) to look at and consider the other ingredients at hand which happen to be orange and apple. I settled for orange and it proved to be a wise decision. The orange cake, unlike chocolate cake, was quite easy to prepare and was also zesty and tasty.

Basically, orange cake is just a common pound cake added with some orange juice and flavored with its zest. Although it can be served without any frosting or just sprinkled with icing sugar, I prefer it with some light frosting simply made by dissolving confectioner’s sugar in some orange juice. It adds zing to the taste and at the same time retains the cake moist for several days. Amazingly, orange can really be used to make a truly exciting cake.

Sweet orange which refers to the citrus variety called “Citrus sinensis” is the most commonly grown tree fruit in the world. While it is reported to have probably originated in Southeast Asia (this makes me wonder how come it is not commercially grown in the Philippines?) and first cultivated in China (2500 BC). Brazil, USA (Florida), India and Mexico are now the top growers of the tree for its delicious fruit, either to be eaten as a whole or to be processed as juice.

Hamburger with Cheese - 100% Beef (Cheeseburger)

Due to its widespread popularity and worldwide proliferation, hamburger can be considered as an indication of inflation. Seriously! The hamburgers we have been enjoying from the many fast-food restaurants have considerably evolved into smaller sizes over the years, sort of suffering from a serious condition of dwarfism. This, I believe is due to the effect of the world inflation. Knowing it is a good business decision to stick to the current retail price as much as possible, the only way to go for burger companies to counter the continuously rising prices of ingredients and increasing costs of production is to wittingly but very silently reduce the serving sizes.

Praying the consumers will not really notice the physical changes and blindly think that they are eating the same portion originally served many years back. But of course we eventually become aware of. We may not necessarily complain but somehow deep inside we know.

On top of the reduction in size, the quality of beef patties is also probably being thwarted to incorporate cheaper extenders and the likes to cope up with the increasing price of beef. We have notice the slightly diminishing quality of the beef patties over the years as well. What used to be a 100% beef hamburger can no longer be expected from our favorite burger fast-foods now. But this negative food evolution is something we should understand. As I said above, this is brought about by the world inflation and the company’s decision to suspend increasing prices as much as possible. It is happening not only to hamburgers but to almost all commodities, food or otherwise.

But we, as consumers have the power to choose. With the many restaurants or food outlets available around, offering their versions of the delicious hamburgers, then we can select the ones giving the best worth for our money. We can still continue our pursuit for that 100% pure beef hamburgers. Not just as a commercial ad label but a true selection parameter. And if still we cannot find satisfaction, then we can always make our own and be sure that it is really a 100% beef hamburger.

Creamy Chicken Liver Pâté

We are in sandwich-eating mood and we scour our fridge for the available spread that we could use. We have both our all-time favorites’ chicken sandwich and tuna sandwich spreads, several types of sweet jam, some margarine and butter as well as slices of Cheddar, processed and Gouda cheeses. But none of them excites our palates this time. We have been regularly eating them and our taste buds are probably somewhat tired and wanting something different. Not necessarily new, but at least something we have not eaten in a long time.

Then I remembered I have half a kilo of chicken liver which I wanted to prepare into chicken liver pâté ……… and the excitement started to build-up. For most Filipinos who grew up with the country’s popular liver spread (Reno Brand) in their everyday sandwiches, especially with “pandesal” or Filipino bread roll, liver pâté is an expensive but sufficient alternative when living abroad.

In general, pâté is a mixture of ground meat and fat or butter blended into a spreadable paste. Common additions include vegetables, herbs, spices, wine and cream. In French or Belgian cuisine, pâté may be baked in a crust as pie or loaf or baked in a terrine or other mold or earthenware. The most famous pâté is probably “pâté de foie gras”, made from the fattened livers of geese, the tastiest liver for me.

In the European countries of Netherlands, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Sweden and Austria, some liver pâtés are shaped as a soft, often spreadable sausage, called “leverworst” in Dutch or “Leberwurst” in German. In the United States these are sometimes referred to as "liverwurst", a combination of English and German. Some “liverwurst” can be sliced and used as sandwich filler while others are spreadable, like the type popular in the UK and my father’s favorite. Yes, he keeps a good stock of a certain “liverwurst” product in his room. :-)

Homemade Tuna Sandwich Spread

Our group has been consuming a lot of chicken meat for the last 5 years that we’ve been assigned in a highway project here in Sri Lanka. It’s mainly due to the scarcity and high cost of pork and seasonal availability of fish. In my estimate, out of the 21 main meals that we have in a week, considering 3 meals per day, more than half of the meals are made up of chicken either as the main viand or major ingredient in cases of vegetable dishes. Obviously, there were days when we have chicken for both lunch and dinner. We love chicken, right! :-)

So when I again decided to prepare a homemade sandwich spread the other day, I opted to use canned tuna meat instead of the usual boiled chicken flakes. While chicken sandwich spread which I featured here before remains my most favorite amongst other sandwich spread variations, we felt using tuna will serve as a sort of reprieve for the many days of continuously over-indulging into the reliable chicken.

Tuna are massive, fast swimming sea water fish with muscle tissue that ranges from pink to dark red. The fish are highly sought-after by both fishermen and anglers alike either for commercial consumption or sports and recreational pursuit. While there are over 48 different tuna species, the term tuna generally refers to those that belong to the family of “Scombridae” and particularly under the genus “Thunnus”, which includes 9 species. The yellow fin tuna is the most prominent specie and probably among the most important in terms of culinary application, although not the most expensive.

Carrot Cake, Healthy and Tasty

I am not so much into sweets. I only enjoy several types of cake. In particular, I only like those moderately sweetened and not covered with overly sweet icing. You will notice this by the types of cake that I bake and feature here like the banana cake and chocolate cake I posted earlier. However, I am open and don’t really have a problem to preparing even those not suited to my taste, provided I will be serving them to family and friends. After all, fulfillment in cooking, or baking for that matter, is a factor of sharing to your love ones. And besides, personal satisfaction is only as good as the satisfaction of those whom the food was shared with.

Another cake that works well with me is the healthy and tasty carrot cake. Like banana cake, it is fruit and/or vegetable base and not excessively sweet. Carrot cake is a cake which consists of finely grated carrot mixed with cake batter. The carrot softens during the baking process and the resulting cake usually has softer but denser texture and coarser crumb than the traditional cake. The carrot itself enhances the flavor, quality and appearance of the cake. Usual recipes include optional ingredients such as nuts, raisins, coconut or pineapple. The last one is my favorite addition to the cake.

Sausage Sandwich with Cheese and Orange Marmalade

I saw in a television food program how a specialty restaurant in the US prepares some really interesting hotdog sandwiches which were a bit unusual but I found quite innovative and daring. In particular, their hotdog was butterflied, grilled flat and topped with slices of cheese then laid on an also butterflied hotdog bun spread with strawberry jam instead of the usual mayonnaise or tomato sauce-base dressings.

Another version was the use of peanut butter instead of the jam. The idea is to combine the sweet taste of the jam spread and the slightly salty-creamy taste of cheese and blend with the taste of the hotdog to make a distinctly good tasting hotdog sandwich.

Yesterday, I decided to make my own version of the exciting hotdog sandwich. Since I am not a big fan of strawberry jam, or any other strawberry laden or flavored food for that matter, I decided to use sweet orange marmalade instead. Likewise, in lieu of the good hotdog which is rather difficult to come by in my area of residence, I used a special edition sausage infused with cheese and onion that I recently chanced upon and bought in the supermarket.

Homemade Chicken Sandwich Spread

Chicken sandwich spread is probably the most popular and fastest selling sandwich spreads in groceries and supermarkets. Unlike the slightly sweet-sourly plain sandwich spread and other expensive versions but rather poorly flavored with either ham, bacon, tuna, etc., it is widely available and has a good taste that appeals to most members of the family, young and old. It is oftentimes a mother’s reliable allies when in need of quick-fix sandwiches to satisfy the demanding but usually discriminating taste of kids.

Having this product at home has a lot of advantages and benefits. There is no need to rush in the morning to cook some dish because even plain chicken sandwich makes an interesting and yummy breakfast dish. It could well serve as an easy snack or “merienda” during break time or tea time. It could be your best source of treat for unannounced friends and visitors dropping by your place. It is perfect for the popular Filipino bread rolls called “pandesal” anytime of the day.

Refrigerated Cake - No Bake Cake

Baking is truly fun and rewarding. No doubt about that. But sometimes you just don’t have the energy and/or time to attend to its complex requirements. Given such a condition, you can still prepare a certain type of cake that will satisfy your wants and/or your love ones cravings. Make a refrigerated cake. It’s simple and easy. It is a no-bake cake that can be prepared over a short period of time and using just a few easy to find ingredients. A treat for those always on the go and could only spend a limited time in the kitchen but still prefer homemade goodies for the family.

Let me share with you a fool-proof recipe of a sumptuous refrigerated cake as shared to me by a colleague who was taught by her sister. Honestly, I never thought a no-bake cake especially this one could taste this good. After eating a rather big piece of this yummy refrigerated cake though, I am immediately transformed. I will never look at no-bake cake the same way again. Try this and you too, might find it a welcome alternative to baking when time is not at your disposal. :-)

Easy Sliced Bread Pizza

There is “something” in pizza that could really make me drool. When craving hits me, it is really difficult to ignore or resist such a desire. While the “probably best pizza restaurant” in Sri Lanka which I featured before in my post “Best Pizza in Sri Lanka” is just a 30-minute ride from our area of residence, it is only open at night and not available during the afternoons when cravings usually arise. To make things worst, there are only a few other pizza houses or restaurants serving decent pizzas particularly in the city which we frequent during weekends. Therefore, easy ways of preparing pizza within the limited resource of our accommodation is something I have been continuously exploring.

In connection with this, I have already posted how to make a home-made chunky pizza sauce and a home-made crust or pizza shell in the past. In addition, I have prepared and featured how I make pizzas like the “Chicken Sausage Pizza” and my all-time favorite, “Shrimp Garlic Pizza”. While I always make sure that at least, I have a regular stock of pizza sauce, I usually ran out of shell as its preparation takes a longer time which I hardly have during weekdays, after office hours. So out of necessity, I have been preparing pizza using sliced bread as crust. And I should say, the resulting pizzas aren’t bad. They also have that “something” which I always wanted in a real pizza and the most important thing is that they always satisfy the cravings. :-)

With the ordinary flat bread pizza crust available in the frozen section of groceries here, which we found to be quite thick and too bready, I guess using sliced bread is in fact a better alternative in the absence of our home-made pizza shell. For as long as crusty and firm sliced bread are used, an amazing pizza is in the making.

The ingredients needed to make this easy and quick fix pizza are sliced bread or sandwich bread, of course, some sausage or ham or bacon or salami or any other processed meat you like, good quality mozzarella cheese, some fresh vegetable for toppings like tomatoes, mushroom, chili peppers or bell peppers or capsicum, onions, etc.

As normally done in creating pizzas, all fresh vegetable ingredients are properly washed and chopped or sliced into correct topping sizes, cheese are grated or if too soft, crumbled, sausages or other meat products are lightly fried or cooked and thinly sliced. Then, everything are arrange within easy reach during cooking along with the gorgeous chunky pizza sauce.

First preheat your oven to 375 - 400 degrees Fahrenheit (°F). That’s about 190 to 200 degrees Celsius or Centigrade (°C) or Gas Mark No. 5 - 6 on your oven.

In a perforated pizza pan or better yet pizza stone or baking stone, arrange about 4 slices of bread, more if your pan is wider. Evenly spread about 1 to 2 tbsp pizza sauce, with all the chunky goodness, on each slice of bread.

Then distribute the vegetable ingredients on top which, in this case, are just tomatoes, chili peppers and oyster mushroom. On top of the veggies, evenly scatter the delicious sausages cut up to small pieces.

Put the pan inside the pre-heated oven and bake for about 10-12 minutes or until the toppings are cooked through and the bread crust lightly toasted to golden brown.

Take it out from the oven and quickly spread the crumbled mozzarella cheese on top. Return it to the oven and cook for 5 minutes further or until the cheese has cooked through and melted just right. Don’t overcook the cheese.

With such a stunning pizza, it is so human to immediately take a piece, grab a bite and forget the lesson we already learnt many times before that while cheese in pizzas seems perfectly cool from the outside, it could still be scorchingly hot in the inside. :-(

But a few burnt taste buds will not thwart us from continuously enjoying this sliced bread pizza with all that juicy but still crispy veggies, tasty sausage and sumptuous melted mozzarella cheese. After all, we probably have a large glass of ice cold cola drinks by your side prior to eating, which comes very handy in such events of fiery incidents. :-)

Try this at home…….but avoid a blatant mistake….…make sure to have the first bite when the melted cheese is really cool, in and out. Enjoy! c “,)

Garlic Bread with Real Garlic Bits

Garlic is probably among the most important ordinary and inexpensive cooking ingredients. It imparts a fantastic taste that varies extensively depending on how it is cooked or prepared. It can provide different flavors from a subtle sweet to a mild piquant to a strong almost overpowering one. From the posts in this blog alone, you can find many diverse uses of garlic in various food preparations where the rather simple garlic assumes a major role in creating a truly tasty dish.

The delicious Gambas Al Ajillo is basically shrimp in lots of garlic. The wonderful Shrimp and Garlic Pizza is surprisingly good with just the two toppings, shrimp and garlic, plus some cheese. The widely popular Garlic Fried Rice of the Philippines is mainly fried leftover rice and garlic and yet sumptuous and very delicious. The Toasted Chili and Garlic is so versatile and particularly impressive as add-on to dips and in making ordinary soupy dishes extra special entrees.

Garlic is a species in the onion family “Alliaceae”. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek and chive. It has a characteristic pungent, spicy flavor that mellows and sweetens considerably with cooking. A bulb of garlic, the most commonly used part of the plant, is divided into numerous fleshy sections called cloves. The leaves, stems and flowers on the head are also edible and are most often consumed while immature and still tender.

In praise of the versatile ingredient, another garlic laden dish will be the feature of this post – Garlic Bread. Garlic bread typically consists of crusty bread topped with garlic and olive oil or as many restaurants now prefer, melted butter. It is often eaten as a simple accompaniment to pasta and other Italian dishes. It is either grilled or broiled until toasted or baked in an oven. A modern variation on the recipe tops the garlic bread with a variety of cheeses, often mozzarella, cheddar or feta.

Typically garlic bread is made from baguette or Italian or French long and narrow loaf. However, other similar types of loaf bread can be used when you don’t have baguette at hand. In fact, I used even ordinary crusty type of bread and it’s also wonderful like this local loaf bread of Sri Lanka.

For the one loaf bread above, the other ingredients needed are 1 head garlic, peeled and minced, 1 stick unsalted butter, to be melted, ½ tsp dried oregano, ½ tsp dried parsley, a pinch of salt and 2 stalks fresh flat leaf parsley. If salted butter is what you have, use it by all means but just adjust the amount of salt.

First, using a sharp bread knife, slice the bread to about ¾ inch thick. If you are using baguette, slice it in half along the entire length. Then cut them into manageable lengths, about 6 to 8 inches. For my loaf, I sliced it in such a way that its slice has an outer part as shown below.

Before proceeding, preheat the oven to 350°F or about 175 °C. Doing this will save you a considerable amount of time in the kitchen. :-)

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter on a very low heat. Lifting and swirling pan as necessary to control the temperature and just melt the butter and not heat it to oil consistency. Turn the heat off and add the minced garlic to the melted butter, stirring lightly. Add inn the oregano, dried parsley and salt and stir to blend. Finally add in the fresh parsley and stir once more.

Arrange the sliced bread cut side up, with the outer part on their backs. Spread the butter-garlic mixture over the sliced bread carefully distributing the garlic and herbs on top. Slather the butter basically soaking the crust. Place the prepared bread on a baking pan and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.

Transfer the baking pan to the highest notch closer to the heat and adjust the oven setting to high heat. Broil for further 2 minutes or until the sides or edges of the bread is golden brown and toasted. Be careful not to over broil and burn the bread though. If you want a slightly soft on the inside just shorten the period of broiling.

After broiling, let garlic bread cool for about a minute. Slice diagonally to about inch thick. Transfer in a plate and serve immediately with your favorite pasta dish or soup.

I ate it on its own over a cup of Ceylon tea and it’s also wonderful. But I felt strong cravings for some spaghetti…….whew. Enjoy! c“,)

Whole-Wheat French Toast with Fresh Strawberries

I have just prepared and posted a basic French Toast recipe last week. However, the cravings persisted so I have to prepare it again. But since I have already featured the easy and simple way of doing it, this time I decided to make it more elaborate……..a bit special you may say……..with a touch of fresh fruits based on a recipe provided by one of our members who found it online. :-) The recipe also calls for the use of whole-wheat bread instead of the ordinary breakfast bread which is a welcome change for the benefit of weight-washers like me. Yes, I watch my weight as it continues to go up. J

This preparation should be exciting as the combination of French toast and fruit for breakfast is not a common fare to us. Though I have prepared pancakes topped with sweetened banana before, French toast with a fruit topping, though common and I have eaten in Western restaurants, will be a new experience to prepare at home. But what makes me less exciting is the fruit to be incorporated in the dish.......it’s a strawberry. :-) Don’t wonder, while most people are fascinated with the fragrant, juicy and tasty strawberry, I am not. :-(

But since all our members love strawberries and probably most of you too, the show must go on. I just thought while our members will enjoy their French toast with strawberry toppings, I will eat mine with good old butter. :-) And since I will be posting the preparation in this blog, which is more about cooking than eating, then we should proceed. So fire!

The ingredients needed are 4 slices whole-wheat bread, 3 tbsp strawberry jam (we only have strawberry flavored melon spread), 1 cup fresh strawberries, 1 large egg, 1 large egg white, 2/3 cup low-fat milk, 1½ tsp vanilla extract, a pinch of ground nutmeg and 1 tbsp unsalted butter for frying. Of course you can just double the quantities if you will be serving it to big group like ours.

In a small mixing bowl, place the sliced fresh strawberry and add in the jam or spreadable fruit. Stir carefully until blended.

For the rest of the procedures, simply follow the instruction in my previous French toast post. In another shallow bowl, beat the egg, egg white then add the milk and stir. Add in the vanilla extract and nutmeg and continue beating with a fork until blended. Keep the excess one egg yolk for later use or just fried it in the pan after the toast and use as topping along with butter as what I did.

I a non-stick or well seasoned skillet, melt ¼ tbsp butter over medium heat. Dip a bread slice into the egg mixture, letting it soak briefly on both sides. Don’t over soaked the bread as it will suck up all the egg mixture and we might end up with only two slices of toast instead of four. Fry the soaked slice bread in the skillet. Cook until lightly golden or about 3 minutes per side. Turn once only.

Keep the cooked French toast warm. Either in an oven, preheated to lowest temperature or in an air tight cooler. Repeat with the remaining bread slices, adding the remaining ¾ tablespoon butter as needed.

Arrange the still hot French toast in a serving plate and top with the gorgeous strawberry mixture. Wow…….....Yummy! I know you’ll love it. :-O

Serve immediately with your favorite fruit juice or coffee or tea. It’s lusciously good.

Where is mine topped with just butter…………….and fried egg yolk? c“, )

French Toast

Our group’s usual breakfast, as prepared by our cook (company provided), for Tuesday and Thursday, composed mainly of bread, egg and fried sausage or hotdog or any other processed meat. While we all love fried eggs and hotdogs or sausages, sometimes we get the feeling that we desire different preparation for the ever reliable egg and bread tandem. For a change, I decided to make French toast one day. I have been craving for such for quite a long time and I thought is also an opportunity for me to post the easy yet very satisfying breakfast meal.

French toast, also called “eggy” bread or gypsy toast in UK, is a popular breakfast food in North America, Europe and Bermuda. Typically it is made with bread and eggs along with milk or sugar which are commonly added. Many other spices that are added in the cooking process are depending on the local cuisine or the individual’s preference. For me, I usually use cinnamon powder and/or vanilla extract to make a heavenly French toast. In general, this versatile dish is often topped with powder sugar, butter, fruit, syrup, jam, whipped cream, marmalade, cheese, bacon, marmite, treacle or honey to name a few.

In making the dish, slices of bread are dipped in a beaten egg and sugar mixture. The egg-coated bread are then placed on a frying pan or griddle prepared with a coat of butter or oil, and cooked until both sides are browned and the egg has cooked through. The cooked slices are then served with toppings of your choice. I like cheese and ham or bacon for toppings. Butter and maple syrup could also work for me. :-)

To cook my version of French toast the following ingredients are needed: slices of bread, eggs, fresh milk, cinnamon powder, butter and any toppings you prefer.

For easy understanding, preparation is presented on a per egg basis. You can double, triple, and so on, the quantities depending on the number of persons it is going to be served. In a mixing bowl, break one egg and beat lightly. Add ½ cup of milk and dash of cinnamon powder and whisk to mix evenly. If you like your toast to be sweet, you can add some sugar at this point and whisk again until dissolved. This egg-milk mixture is good for 2 slices of bread.

Dip both sides of the first bread in the egg-milk mixture until the bread soaked up the mixture. Meanwhile, in a non-stick pan, heat about 1 tsp butter.

Fry the first mixture-soaked bread until golden brown and you can see marbled portions of egg mixture. Flip and cook the underside. Do the same for the other bread. Transfer the French toast in a plate and serve immediately.

As I mentioned above, toppings depend on your likings. Butter and syrup is commonly available and thus it is my usual accompaniment for this wonderful bread–egg breakfast meal. Enjoy! It’s yummy! c“,)

I better start teaching our cook to prepare this……...for some additional variations in his breakfast preparation. :)