Peachy French Toast with updates

I think that the week I'm moving is a great time to post a recipe. What else do I have to do besides update my blog? Pack the kitchen? Paint? Clean bathrooms? Nah. I'd rather do this.

I discovered this yummy dish almost eight years ago when Randy and I stayed with Kent and Janice Howard in Elko. Janice is a fabulous cook. She served this yummy dish for breakfast. Since then, it has become a family favorite. When we had fresh peaches this fall, I made this for breakfast a few times and my kids thought they were in heaven. This is a recipe from Taste of Home and you can find a printable version on their website by clicking here.

Let's get started. This recipe has to sit overnight so plan ahead.

In a saucepan, combine 1 cup firmly packed brown sugar, 1/2 cup butter, and 2 tablespoons water. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. You may be tempted to only simmer for one minute, but the longer you simmer, the better the syrup is at the end. Pour the sauce into a greased 9 x 13 pan.

Let me just caution you on the stirring business. Don't use a plastic spoon for this part or else your spoon will look like this:
And then you have to throw that whole batch away and start over.



Drain a 29 oz. can of sliced peaches and arrange over the syrup. Or if you have a quart jar of your own peaches, just drain that and use those. Or if it's the right season and you have a peach tree, use four or five fresh peaches. Or you could spend a bundle on fresh peaches out of season. Just slice up some peaches and cover the syrup in the bottom of that pan.

Slice up a left-over loaf of French bread and arrange 12 slices over the peaches. Then wisk together six eggs, 1 1/2 cups milk, and 1 tablespoon vanilla. **Randy kindly reminded me that nobody ever just has left-over French bread. So- just go buy a loaf of French bread and use it to make this tomorrow. See- now it's left over (night).

Pour the egg mixture over the bread.

I like to pour slowly and make sure that all my bread is soaked with the egg mixture. It will taste better tomorrow. Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, take the mixture out of the fridge and preheat the oven to 350. Let the French toast sit for 30 minutes before baking. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Bake for 20 minutes covered; uncover and bake another 25-30 minutes or until a knife inserted in the French toast comes out clean.

I forgot to take a pretty picture of it when it came out of the oven. So here's a pretty picture half eaten. The syrup becomes all runny and yummy and is so good on the French toast.

Yummy!

**Another note, I made this once using powdered eggs and powdered milk from my food storage, and my own canned peaches. It worked out great! I was teaching a Relief Society class on food storage and wanted to teach the sisters that it was possible to make yummy food from your food storage. Truth be told, I think this is the only thing I've ever made with stuff in my food storage.

**Except that's not true. I made brownies once with powdered eggs. I don't recommend it. Randy literally had to chisel them out of the pan. Hard as a rock. He says he broke a chisel.

Home Sweet Lean-To

For the last 112 days (but who's counting?) we've lived in this dungeon and have taken walks and gone running up and down the roads in this little community. It's been interesting, to say the least. As one of my friends put it, "It was good enough for grandpa and good enough for them and it's gonna be good enough for their kids, by golly." In other words, change or progress is not evident here. I heard someone else put it another way, "You have to marry your cousin to live up there." Yes, there are several last names, but one way or another, those names all lead back to one family tree.


But this post really isn't about either one of those things. It's about this:

Is it a house? Is it a trailer? Is it three stories? or two and a half? These strucutres, otherwise known as homes, literally litter the countryside. Feel free to discuss this building craze amongst yourselves.

Thankful

Growing up, Thanksgiving was a day of work. At some point, my parents hit upon a great plan for my dad to get work done outside and my mom to get dinner fixed without kids harassing her. Thanksgiving day became the day we restacked the wood pile. And somehow the timing always worked out such that we couldn't eat (i.e. dinner wasn't done yet) until the pile was restacked.

Then we moved and my parents decided the furnace was better than the wood-burning stove (no, it's not, but it is less work). They just had a dwindling family, see, and now they would have to haul, chop, and stack the wood themselves so it didn't seem to be so important.

Eventually, my mother started a new Thanksgiving tradition of going around the table and saying what you're grateful for. Mostly, I can't remember what I said. Since I'm not with my extended family today, I thought maybe I'd take a minute and share with you what I'm grateful for this year.

*My husband. As marriages are falling apart all around us, I'm grateful he's willing to work on ours.

*My children. People we know struggle to have babies and I've been blessed with four.

*My husband's job. More and more jobs are disappearing and we are grateful every day that Randy has a great job that he loves.

*My education. One of the best moments of my life was earning my master's degree. Nobody can take my knowledge away from me.

*Good health. We can get out of bed every day and go about our activities.

*Rod & Christy inviting us to share Thanksgiving with them. I don't think I could bring myself to cook up a turkey in this apartment. I hope they have pumpkin pie.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Time Out!

Randy wasn't very pleased with the mouse post so it's time to move on.

10 days ago I was able to meet my two best friends in Salt Lake City for Time Out for Women. I'm not sure what I expected, but I got more than I imagined. Besides three great days with two of my favorite people, I was spiritually fed and uplifted.



We did some shopping Friday afternoon and then ran to my aunt's house to leave our things. Thank you, Aunt Dixie, for hosting us. We enjoyed every minute we spent with you and Uncle Gary. Then it was off to the Salt Palace to hang with 3,300 other women.

Friday was fabulous as we got to hear from Wendy Watson Nelson, wife of Elder Russell M. Nelson, and Sheri Dew. Saturday we were entertained by Mary Ellen Edmunds and Emily Watts, and we were taught by S. Michael Wilcox and Kris Blecher. It was really an uplifting experience. Lori, Vicki, and I spent some time talking about what we learned and we know.


Some things will not be forgotten: the beaver hat, running to Olive Garden to get a table for lunch, makeovers, scary Walmart, Trulee forgetting very important things like a toothbrush and pajamas.


Some things will be treasured: knowing that I couldn't ask for two better friends in all the world, knowing that my husband loves me (and didn't complain at all about taking a day off work so I could go), knowing that I'm here for a purpose, and knowing that there are women out there who love and live and struggle and rejoice, just like me.


We made plans for next year. Now that I think about it, we made a lot of plans over the weekend. Plans that involve three women and no husbands or children. Plans that I know we will carry out. And I can't wait!

#21

It's not a big secret that I greatly dislike where we are currently living. I couldn't find a house that I loved (or even liked, for that matter) and we needed to get into a place fast because school was starting. This little basement apartment came up and the landlord didn't require a lease, which was good because that means we can leave anytime...like next week when we move into a house...a house which I love, by the way.


In the meantime, this apartment has provided its set of challenges. We dealt with quite a few spiders when we first moved in. My kids aren't scared of those anymore. Not even McKay. He'll grab a shoe and take out the spider. Over the weekend, he rolled over a little one with his toy car.


One other challenge, that isn't as easy to deal with, has been mice. Not A mouse, but MICE, as in lots. More than I've seen in the last five years. We didn't have a single mouse in Elko. I loved the neighbor's cat because of that. Now that I think about it, we've probably caught more in this apartment than I've seen in my whole 36 years.


Most of them have been caught under the kitchen sink, but we did have some glue traps around just in case. Saturday morning Randy observed this little creature in a glue trap next to the dryer.

Disgusting, huh? This is #21. It was still alive at this point so then there was some morbid excitement about how to take out the mouse. If you know Braxton, you know how it ended. And try as I might to keep three other kids from watching, it was somewhat of a victory for them.

In case you are wondering, the next one will be #27. Please don't call Health and Welfare on us yet. Give me one week to get moved out and into my house.

Coming soon - pictures of my new house!!!

A Fine Fall Day

During our last bit of beautiful weather, Randy took the kids (and the camera) for a walk.

We live less than a mile from the Fall River and it's a fun walk there and back.


These are not our dogs. They belong to the guy up the road. These dogs like to go to the river, too.

These are the Tetons. Not a great picture...

Most of the canals are empty so they walked out on a foot bridge and had a seat.

And this is McKay later that night.

It was, in all, a fine fall day.

Friday

Before we moved, I had grand plans for my blog. I was going to post recipes! I was going to post book reviews! I was going to post often! Every other day!

And none of that has happened.

So today, I'm posting because my new goal is to JUST POST!

If I had more time, I'd post about Time Out for Women. I'd post about spending a week in Boise. I'd post about Christmas shopping. I'd post about buying a house.

But I don't have more time so all you get is a fake post about wishing I could post a real post.

Have a great day!

Boo!

While it was a nice evening for trick-or-treating (i.e. not too cold), I was sick (cough-cough) and Randy ended up taking the kids by himself. Bummer. The kids made a haul and after picking through it, some went in the freezer and some went in the drawer and some (most) went away.