A Post about French Toast (and a Weather Roast)

Though the Republicans--and/or the scientists on the oil company payrolls--work hard to disavow global warming, you can't tell me that there's not something weird going on with the weather. It was 50 and 60 degrees here until the latter part of January (unheard of). Since then, we've had blizzards and an unprecedented three snow days at school. And here it is almost mid-March (spring break, even!), and we're still experiencing record-breaking cold, a deep freeze that we have been enduring for two loooong months. That is, until today when we enjoyed a veritable heat wave of 40 degrees! My washing machine even thawed out long enough for me to do a load of clothes--yippee. Mind you, just the other day, I'm chilling my cake layers out on the front porch at 18 below (and no, that wasn't a euphemism...though it could have been). That's a differential of 60 degrees in two days! Of course, now they are gearing up for the inevitable flooding that will come when you combine the massive snow pile-ups around the area with days in the mid-40's next week! Sheesh.

During the winter, anytime it warms up for a second (that is, when it's even slightly above zero), we try to get out and take care of the poor chickens who are literally cooped up for months. You can always tell when it's time to clean and change the bedding material by monitoring the eggs. When the eggs get dirty, it's time. Big props must go to Cyd who got out there and did the first spring cleaning recently, and when she did, she found some surprises buried in the old bedding. We thought it puzzling that the girls hadn't given anything up for us in a few days (or more likely, it was too cold for us to spend much time out there gathering!), and then we found all of these! I had to wash them, of course, but they were still very good eats.

So now we have a surplus of eggs. I decided that I wanted to use some of them up by making a whole mess of French toast, as I always seem to do when I finally get some time off from school. And my friend, Martie, at work gave me a terrific tip. She makes a whole loaf of Texas toast at one time, freezes the leftover slices, and then her daughters pop them in the toaster during the week for a quick breakfast. Clever, huh? (Shout out to Martie's daughter, Anna, a lover of all things Oreo and a faithful reader of this blog, I'm told. Hi, Anna!) The problem is, Cyd does not love sweet things in the morning, so I often end up going to all that trouble to eat French toast alone. Boo hiss. So today, I had a brainstorm about a savory use for French toast. Behold what I am calling the Breakfast Monte Cristo! On top of French toast slices, I placed a piece of honey ham, some cheese (preferably, swiss), a fried egg, and a little raspberry jam to top it off. She loved it! And I didn't have to eat the beloved French toast by myself. It's a win-win! Plus, I have more than half a loaf left to toast up over the next week for my breakfast. Thanks for the tip, Martie! (And thanks for the eggs, chickies!)