The kid woke up at 500 and after being topped off he slept until 830. Beautiful. I finally dragged myself out of bed by about 8 and got to work in the kitchen. This is my perfect day, don't judge. I got to work preparing a pork shoulder for pulled pork later on in the day and then got to work on making a Sunday breakfast treat for the family. It went over spectacularly. (I'm not conceited, really...) After breakfast I warmed up my embouchure before taking a shower and heading to church. The organist at our church is simply wonderful and it inspired me to dust off (literally) my trumpet for some accompaniment. This next Sunday being Christmas for Lutherans, a.k.a. Reformation Sunday, we chose a piece for me to play for the Prelude to the service. I have really forgotten how much I love making music.
After that, we dumped the kid in the church nursery. I feel like I should break out a thesaurus to find a different way of saying "after that", but I'm no English major, so you'll just have to suffer my intolerable monotony. Claire and I are new to the church and didn't realize that the whole nursery is carted into the church for the children's sermon. While the procession of children processed, I noticed a woman carrying a pudgy red-headed kid, and I thought to myself, "that kid looks like Rowan." My brain did a little of that new math and figured out that is was my kid. It took me until the end of the Hymn of the Day to stop laughing at myself for my sheer stupidity. It probably wasn't that funny, oh well.
Following the church service, I had a cup of coffee and chatted with the members as God intended for Lutherans. We did purchase tickets to the church's Oktoberfest, which I'm pumped about.
Upon arriving home, I put the pork roast in the oven, hoping it emerges fall apart delicious pulled pork on kaiser rolls for after ultimate frisbee this afternoon. The kid drank a bottle on the drive home and promptly fell asleep for his Sunday afternoon nap, also as God intended for Lutherans. Now I am drinking coffee, eating a braunschweiger with dijon mustard sammich and writing this ridiculous blog.
Which brings me to my next point, don't smoke crack.
Apparently this post has something do to with French toast, so I might as well get after it.
A few months back, I got into making all of our bread at home. One of my go-to bread recipes is one I adapted from my friend Penny -- it's a sounds-like version of Brownberry's oatmeal bread. I will post that recipe later on today, but now I'm focusing on the French toast part of it. If I make three loaves of the stuff on Sunday, I usually end up with half a loaf left by the following Sunday morning, which cuts into six, one inch slices, perfect for this recipe.
Possibly my favorite TV chef, whose recipes I generally adore, is Alton Brown. My wife recalled eating French toast growing up, so she encouraged me to give it a shot and lo and behold, Alton had a recipe for it. It seemed a bit involved at the outset, but it is most definitely worth the effort. For the most part, I keep everything true to the original, save the thickness of the slice of bread. The thickness just seems extravagant to me, plus it reduces the number of things I have to fry in a pan - less time cooking, more time eating and drinking coffee.
So here goes the recipe:
Preheat the oven to 375° F
Here's the goofy equipment you need:
two wire cooling racks
two cookie sheets
pie pan
In a bowl mix the following:
3 eggs
1 cup of at least whole milk, half and half even better
2 tbs of warm honey
1/4 tsp of salt (be sensible)
Once mixed place this all in a flat dish like a pie pan
Cut your bread 1 inch thick - seriously, it's great.
Put the cooling racks in the cookie sheets and set one next to the cook top and put one in the oven.
Get your pan nice and warm - I prefer a well seasoned cast iron for this.
Put a piece of bread in the pie dish and let it soak for about 30 seconds on each side and then move it to the cookie sheet on the counter for about 2 minutes to let egg mix soak through the bread - remember how thick you cut it?
Put a pad of butter in the pan so nothing sticks and then brown the bread evenly brown on both sides, being careful not to rip it - there's a lot of eggy-goodness in there.
Once it is browned on both sides, transfer to the wire rack in the oven and let it bake for 5 minutes to finish of the interior of the bread without burning the outside.Plate it up and serve it with just about anything you like, however after picking up a jar of apple butter at a pumpkin farm, I definitely encourage going with apple butter. PS - I'll be posting a really easy recipe for this in a little bit.
Here is to my perfect Sunday. I'm trying to come up with something witty and/or sarcastic, but I'm in too good of a mood to act so foul.
Enjoy your Sunday afternoon and go listen to the re-broadcast of a Prairie Home Companion, as God intended for Lutherans on Sunday afternoons.
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