Sunday sure looked like an early spring day and it was cold and blustery outside.
When I looked out the window to take the photo, I found more of the crocus I’d planted last year. It’s strange having them come up well after the tulips… This is in the New East garden.
When my sister lived out here in New England we’d take her for a pancake breakfast at a local sugar house on her birthday in March. She misses that and decided what she wanted for her birthday this year was for us to cook French toast at each of our houses and then eat it together while we talked on the phone. Actually she wanted pancakes, but I had been wanting to do French toast, so she agreed to that.
I had been wanting to make a huge batch of French toast for weeks now. I use millet bread as I can’t do wheat. It’s kept frozen in the freezer so I have to thaw it to use it, hence the pan of bread. I use a recipe called Fluffy French toast:
I was making a triple recipe. I also add a small amount of allspice to the recipe.
I have my homemade unsalted butter and I use a tablespoon for each batch of toast. Each slice is very quickly dipped on both sides and into the pan. I do not soak it. It needs to be firm enough to go into a toaster later. Once it’s in the pan I cover it. It cooks faster that way.
I was just getting ready to start cooking it at 9:30 when our local maple syrup/firewood/sawn wood guy arrived with this year’s maple syrup. See the nice label and the glossy bottle? He’s been using these for years because they are sealed by the gloss and the syrup keeps much better. The local company that’s made them all these years stopped last year.
Now they buy in cheap jugs, coat them and there’s no nice label anymore. One has to buy labels and put them on each jug. Plus they cost more than the old ones, as they must be shipped in. So these are the last of the nice jugs.
This year both he and Tom said it was a bad year for syrup: too hot during the days or not warm enough. He didn’t say how much he made, but Tom only got 4 gallons.
But for my breakfast I would be using the old syrup from last year.
This is halfway through. That’s a large platter underneath.
In the end I’d made 40 slices of toast and was freezing 3 dozen slices. I had 4 for breakfast.
I used my old fashioned corded phone to talk with my sister while I ate. You can hold those on your shoulder.
While I waited for each batch to cook, I set up to make a large batch of devilled eggs.
I had lots of old eggs from not being able to make the French toast for so long. Old eggs are excellent for devilled eggs as they peel so easily.
I use the recipe from the Joy of Cooking, sort of. Mostly I do it by eye, adapting how much of the condiments to the number of yolks.
My husband’s mom gave me her old devilled egg plate years ago. It’s definitely seen better days, but I still like it and use it.
I didn’t make the eggs until well after noontime as I sat and rested after the toast making. I snacked on them off and on the rest of the day.
On Monday I have to call the wood guy as we are now less than 2 weeks from the date of the wood bee. The wood bee is to get all the wood that the wood guy cuts up into the woodshed. It’s scheduled for April 10th . I also have laundry to do and a wall to spray among other things. It’s to be bitter cold the next couple days, record breaking they claim. The stoves are going well for the next few days.