Special Occasion Stuffed French Toast

I have one meal that transports Evan to another planet.

I'm pretty easy as far as getting excited about food goes. I crave a million different things. For example, when I drink hot chocolate, I feel like every cell in my body dances. Since I've never tried drugs, this is the closest experience I'll ever have to a serious addiction.

Evan likes eating and he eats pretty well. He just doesn't get excited about food like I do. Except for this one thing I make: stuffed french toast. It's become a bit of a tradition that I make it for every special occasion; birthdays, anniversaries, and Valentine's Day. I've tried different breakfast foods that I thought would be just as exciting, but it always ends up not measuring up to the stuffed french toast.

This recipe is by no means healthy, but it sure is tasty. If you want a blog that will give you recipes that help you drop a pant size, this is not the place for you.



So, here's the recipe:

Special Occasion Stuffed French Toast

French toast dip
1 loaf of French bread thickly sliced
4 eggs
1 cup milk
2 tsp cinnamon
1 pinch nutmeg
1 pinch cloves
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp rum extract (optional)

Cream Cheese Stuffing
1 tsp vanilla extract
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 to 2 Tbsp milk

Strawberry Topping
1 pint fresh strawberries sliced
1/3 cup sugar

Combine strawberries and sugar in a bowl and set aside.

In another bowl combine all of the stuffing ingredients and mix until smooth.

In an 8x8 casserole dish combine all dip ingredients except for bread and mix well with immersion blender.  Slice each piece of French bread halfway down the middle and stuff with cream cheese mixture and strawberries. Warm a pan on the stove or a griddle and grease generously with butter. Dip bread into the egg mixture and toast on both sides on pan or griddle. Top with remaining cream cheese and strawberries and drizzle maple syrup on top.

The Move Part II: Everything Else

I never, never, never want to move again! I don't mind packing so much as I really despise the unpacking. Going to a new place is fun and finding an apartment can be fun sometimes, but wow, I'm glad it's over.

Too bad we'll have to move in another two years. Maybe in one, depending if this place is too small for our growing family.

But the process wasn't for nothing! I felt like I learned a lot about packing and moving in general. Mostly I learned that it's expensive, and even if your husband is nice and does the drive across the country so you can fly with your baby, flying with babies is NOT fun!

But we are all here. And we're all safe. And the house is nearly unpacked with the exception of hanging pictures.

And here are some things that I learned that helped me a little bit with the packing:



Pack your hanger clothes in plastic bags.

Did I mention I hate unpacking? Because I do, but this made is SO easy! (at least the closet part) I just had to tie it up, throw it in a box, and then toss them back on the rack when we got to our apartment. And the best part is that I didn't have to reorganize my clothes in the way they were before we moved.

 Save your shoes with socks. 

I have some shoes that I really love and I really hate when my shoes get scuffed. But obviously I wasn't going to pack all my shoes in separate boxes. So luckily, I have a lot of old socks as well and just put them on the shoes to protect them. Not a (new) scuff in sight!

Use your drawers.

Breaking down our furniture would have been a real pain and it's likely that it would never come out looking the same, so we kept all of ours intact and used all the drawers. We put most of our fragile things like pictures and decorations in our sock drawers. Any and every drawer was used to its full potential. This saved us lots of time and money that we would have spent bubble wrapping everything.





There were some other things I learned that just can't be expressed in pictures:

• No matter how far in advance you plan, you will always be working until the last second.
• Making lists is the only way to remember to do everything
• Everything will go wrong (our sprinklers had issues, I packed my phone charger so couldn't use it, and the old tenants were dirty, so we had to deal with mice when we moved in...yikes!)
• Friends are priceless! We had so many people offering dinner, rides, use of their carpet cleaner, and babysitting. It was amazing.