Amazing Baked French Toast

The hens around here have been working overtime and my fridge has begun to show it with carton upon carton of eggs.

Never one to throw away perfectly good food, I've been searching for another good egg recipe, since we don't want to eat Farmhouse Casserole every day!

After looking over a few recipes, I tweaked them together and came up with my version of baked french toast.

What you'll need:

• French bread
• A jar or can of your favorite pie filling
• Half dozen eggs
• Milk
• Vanilla
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
• Flour
• Brown sugar
• Butter

Step 1

Here's what you do:

Cube up the french bread into 1" cubes and put into an 11x7 baking dish that has been lightly sprayed with cooking spray.  You'll want to fill the dish about 2/3 of the way full. (Note - I'm using an 8x8 dish in the photo)

Step 2

Dump the pie filling into the dish with the bread and mix it all together.  

Step 3

Beat a half dozen eggs together as you would for french toast.  (I did mine with 1/4 cup milk, two teaspoons of vanilla and a tablespoon of sugar.  Then I sprinkled cinnamon over the mixture as I beat it together until it looked about right to me.)

Step 4

Dump the egg mixture over the bread and pie filling.  Stir to make sure that all of the bread has been coated with the egg.

Step 5

Mix together one stick of melted butter with 2/3 cup of flour and 2/3 cup of brown sugar.  This will come out like a thick paste.  Spread across the top of your bread in the backing dish.

Refrigerate overnight or bake right away at 375 for about 45-60 minutes depending on your oven.  (If you've refrigerated, let it set for 30 minutes before baking.)

It's done with all the eggs are set and a knife inserted in the center comes out free of raw egg.

We've made this now with apple pie filling and blueberry filling.  I liked the blueberry but hubby seemed to prefer the apple.  I'm planning to try strawberry next.

And yes, I realize that there is a lot of sugary sweetness in this recipe.  I certainly wouldn't use it everyday, but for the occasional breakfast or holiday brunch it is fabulous!

ENJOY!

The Story of Snuggles, The Doe That Wasn't

I like to think we all make mistakes.  Or maybe it's just me that makes mistakes.

LOTS of mistakes.

Anyhow, here is the story of how I learned to ALWAYS judge a bunny by it's... errr... well, you'll see.

Last summer I received a call from a friend that had a beautiful little house bunny that needed a good home.  Snuggles was a broken black Holland doe.  Sweet, affectionate, and absolutely adorable, she was purchased from a Holland breeder as a baby to be my friend's grandson's pet.  

And so she began the life of a house bunny.  

But, as kids so often do, my friend's grandson eventually lost interest in the bunny and wasn't caring for her correctly.  My friend would clean out Snuggles' cage when she came over, and was constantly reminding him to care for him little lop eared ball of fur.

At two years old, Snuggles' owners went out of town for the summer, and she went to stay with my friend.  This is when her life of luxury truly began.  Shredded carrots, quartered apples, high end bunny foods.  Toys, chews, and the run of the whole house.

Truly, a life of luxury.  And in some ways I think, a life of loneliness, since my friend didn't have any other pets.

Finally, at three years old, Snuggles' came to live with me.  My friend's grandson had long since quit talking about coming to get his bunny, and my friend's husband was having allergy problems and was told by his doctor that the rabbit had to go.

Of course, we have no room for a house rabbit, and Snuggles was moved to the rabbit house with the other rabbits.  For the first time in a long time she was surrounded by those of her own kind, and she genuinely seemed to enjoy sniffing noses of the other rabbits and laying beside them.

Around Christmas we started to breed the rabbits, and Snuggles went in with Reese.  Of course, she didn't seem to know what she was supposed to do, and spent as much time mounting him as he did mounting her.  We laughed at the silly rabbit, but didn't worry too much.

Weeks went by.  The nest box went in.  30 days.  31 days. 32 days.  On day 33 she decided that the nest box looked more like a litter box, and we declared defeat and removed it.

A month later we gave it another try, with much the same results of him mounting her and her mounting him.  I googled, and found that it wasn't at all unusual.  

So we decided we'd just wait and see what would happen.

Only a week later, while looking at pictures of some rabbits for sale, did it occur to me that all of these does had dewlaps.  All of my girls had dewlaps (that double chin looking skin flap on does) - except for one.  

Snuggles.

Surely "she" wasn't a "he"?  I had never checked.  I had taken my friend at her word, as she had taken the word of her daughter who had bought Snuggles from a breeder for her son.

Hoping I was wrong I headed out to the rabbit barn.  It took just a moment to realize that all this time our Snuggles was a buck!  The poor thing had been treated as a girl for four years with purple bowls and pink toys.  

To say I felt embarrassed is an understatement.  Weeks later and I'm still embarrassed.  I will never again take in or buy a rabbit without sexing it myself.

Snuggles however, is he same old self.  We will be giving him a chance at fatherhood soon.