Pumpkin French Toast

This year my company gave us Christmas Eve as a holiday. My husband also had the day off too. We decided to spend the day at home playing games, relaxing and just spending time together. We are lucky to have lots of family gatherings around the holidays so we knew that the entire Christmas weekend would be jam packed full of activity. It was nice to have a day to ourselves.

Since we were staying home I wanted to make a special breakfast. I decided on pumpkin french toast after searching the web and finding this recipe at Post Punk Kitchen. I absolutely love anything pumpkin and I love french toast so it sounded like a winner. This is actually a vegan recipe and I thought it would be interesting to try to make french toast without eggs.

Pumpkin French Toast
4 servings

1 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups almond milk (or any other non-dairy milk like soy or rice)
2 tbsp corn starch
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 stale baguette, sliced into 1 inch pieces
Cooking oil for pan

Mix together all ingredients except bread and cooking oil. Spread out bread slices in a single layer on a rimmed pan (I used a jelly roll pan). Pour on pumpkin mixture and flip to coat. Let sit for 20 minutes, then flip over and soak for 10 more minutes.


Preheat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Spray with cooking oil or pour a little into the pan and cook the soaked bread slices in batches for 5-7 minutes on one side and 3 minutes on the other. They should be golden to medium brown and flecked with dark spots. Serve with Earth Balance butter (if going completely vegan) and warm maple syrup.


My take on it: Instead of using pumpkin puree from a can (which I normally do for pumpkin recipes) I used our homemade pumpkin puree that we made last fall from the pumpkins we grew. It had been in the freezer for awhile and this was its debut appearance. I also used soy milk instead of almond milk.

Everything about this recipe was going fine until I got to the cooking part. In the original recipe, the poster says she uses a cast iron skillet so I thought I would do the same. That was a mistake. The bread just stuck to the skillet and never seemed to cook no matter how much oil I used. I finally gave up on the cast iron and switched to non-stick. Once I did that the cooking part went much smoother. However even after cooking, the bread was mushy in the middle. It didn't want to cook all the way through. I think it was because the bread I used wasn't very stale at all. It was too soft.


In the end we both liked the recipe enough to try it again. We ate all 8 pieces, mushy middles and all. The flavor was great and it was pretty easy to make, though it takes longer than regular french toast due to the soaking time. I want to try making this again with older bread to see if that helps the mushiness.

I also wonder if this recipe would be good baked in the oven instead of cooked on the stove. Like french toast casserole or bread pudding. I wonder if it would set without the eggs. There was a lot of soaking liquid leftover so you might have to reduce the milk a smidge, or maybe let it soak overnight.

Bottom Line: I will make this again.

So. Much. Snow.

When I woke up this morning the outside temperature was 4 degrees F, with a wind chill that makes it feel like -8 degrees F. On top of that I also forgot to turn my alarm off last night so it woke me up at 5:45am on a Saturday! I tried to go back to sleep but couldn't so got up to use the restroom. On the way back to bed I managed to get tangled up in the space heater and knocked it over on top of my foot. It's one of those radiator-looking space heaters and one of the edges came down right on top of my little foot bones. I actually started crying like a little kid! My sweet husband got me an ice pack and my laptop and so here I sit in bed, icing my foot and typing this blog. It has not been a great morning for me!

Anyway what I wanted to blog about today was snow. Ever since Christmas, Kansas City has been covered in a blanket of snow. It actually snowed on Christmas Day which doesn't happen very often around here. And that's fun and pretty until you realize you can't get out of your driveway to go see your relatives.


Usually when we get snow around here it melts after a couple of days. We don't normally have days and days of single digit temperatures. But this year we did so the Christmas snow couldn't melt. And then it snowed again. And again. And it all piled on top of the previous snow. And then this past Wednesday we got several more inches of snow. It's insane! I don't know if I've ever seen this much snow!

My dog Rosco loves the snow. He rolls around in it.


Pretty icicles at my aunt's house the weekend after Christmas:


The patio furniture on our back deck:


The flower bed is completely covered now:


Tomorrow the high is above 20 degrees F. It's gonna be a heat wave!!

A Second Life for Holiday Cards

I love getting holiday cards every year from all our friends and family. I like to see the cards people choose and read their family update letters of what's been going on with them all year. Makes me feel a little bit closer to those who are far away.

However I hate what happens in January. I have all these great cards that people put their love and well wishes into and what am I supposed to do? Just chuck them in the trash (or recycling bin)? It just doesn't seem right.

This year after I was done putting away all the decorations, I googled "recycle holiday cards". I thought I had heard about a program before that gave a second life to cards and lo and behold, it popped up.

The St. Jude's Ranch for Children has a Recycled Card Program. People mail in their used cards and the children help make the new cards by removing the front and attaching a new back. Then they sell the cards to raise money for the ranch.

What a fantastic idea! I gathered up all my cards (including some that were still hanging around in a drawer from last year - ooops) and mailed them all this week. It cost less than $3 to mail them to Nevada and I felt better that the cards will have a second life.

Next year I'll consider buying some cards from them instead of buying new cards. It's good to support the program from both ends of the spectrum. Wouldn't it be funny if I got back a card that I donated?

Click the link above to read more about the program and to find out where to mail the cards.