Nutella Stuffed French Toast Sandwich

Are you the type of person that likes to eat your french toast with syrup or do you prefer ketchup? I have to admit that even though I don't eat ketchup on anything, I do like it on my french toast. I'll save the syrup for my pancakes or waffles. Unfortunately, french toast is not something I eat all that often and so I have been known to forget that I like the ketchup combo best and instead smother the bread in syrup. Only then does somebody decide to pull out the ketchup and remind me of my mistake.

Well, with this combination you do not need ketchup (it would actually taste pretty awful if you did use it) and you can get away with no syrup (unless you really want a sugar high). Instead, I just add a bit of butter to the top surface to give it a bit of moisture, and it's perfect.

I've never actually made this recipe with the strawberries before and I almost missed my chance this time. I had the sandwich all ready to dip when the basket of berries caught my eye. I quickly disassembled my sandwich and sliced a few berries to add, and I'm so glad I did.

Usually I make this on my griddle or frying pan but today I decided to use the trusty George Foreman Grill which has become sort of an obsession of mine as of late. It worked great because I didn't have to fret about flipping the sandwich to cook the other side. Which usually results in the top and bottom slices of bread detaching from each other due to the nutella thinning out from the heat and becoming slippery, resulting in a lovely mess of goop. Yup, if you have a grill, please use it. Otherwise, I wish you the best of luck and my thoughts are with you...but that shouldn't stop you from trying this though. The goop still tastes fabulous.

On a side note, try drizzle your finished sandwich with the blueberry sauce that can be found here.

I originally found a recipe for Banana Nutella French Toast on the back of a loaf of whole wheat D'Italiano bread. This is essentially the same idea but with strawberries added in. And if you are anti-Nutella or unfortunately can't eat it because it contains milk, I guess you could settle with making this with Peanut Butter.

Serves 2

Ingredients

4 Eggs
2 Tbsp. Milk

1/2 Tsp Vanilla

4 Slices of Bread

1/4 C. Nutella

4 Strawberries
1 Banana

Directions

~Preheat a grill (or a griddle / frying pan).

~Crack eggs into a dish large enough to accommodate for the size of the bread.

~With a fork, gently whisk the eggs, adding in the milk and vanilla as you go.

~Lay out the bread and spread the nutella on each slice.

~Peel the banana and half ways down the length of it, cut it in half. Thinly slice each half lengthways into thin slices (avoid slicing into rounds as they just slide around when the sandwich is heated)

~Wash, de-stem and thinly slice the strawberries.

~Arrange the strawberries and banana on top of two of the slices of bread, then place the other two slices, nutella side down on top (essentially making a peanut butter & banana sandwich, minus the PB)

~Place the sandwich in the egg mixture, and flip to coat each side.

~Cook sandwich until both sides are golden and the egg is no longer runny & raw.

~Serve with a dollop of butter, or a dusting of icing sugar and whip cream.

Enjoy

The S'mores that weren't S'mores

So I'm Canadian, which means I've always heard that when you make a s'more you have to first break the graham cracker in half. Well, with Canadian graham wafers that would be impossible to do. I always wondered as a kid how you were supposed to break them in half, but now I know. They were actually talking about American Graham Crackers that actually look like this...

...whereas Canadian ones are already the half's.

About a month ago I was in the US for a music festival (best weekend ever!!) and we made a Costco run. In addition to buying a Costco size box of graham crackers, we also bought the Costco size box of Cheeze Its (which incidentally I shoved a handful of into my mouth and almost spat them out because they tasted absolutely nothing like I was expecting them to taste, much to the amusement of our neighbours at the campsite who were like 'what are you talking about? Cheeze Its taste like Cheeze Its,' except they didn't taste at all like they were supposed to.

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised then when I bit into my first American Graham Cracker and just about laughed out loud. They tasted so different (in addition to looking very different). I couldn't place the flavour for a bit and then it clicked...they tasted like Teddy Grahams, which are supposed to taste like graham wafers. Obviously the graham crackers that I'm used to actually don't have a graham taste. The other thing that was different about them was that the crackers I'm used to are very dense and almost chewy, while these new species are light, crisp and almost flakey. Total opposite. Now, why am I saying this? Other than to prove that I probably need to be locked somewhere far, far away from society (or maybe that would be counterproductive and I'm actually this crazy from being a recluse and antisocial??) that is. Well, because I want to introduce to you the s'moreless s'mores. Yes, you read that right, now sit down (or stay sitting) and I'll explain.

Usually about part way through the summer a fire ban gets put into effect and we don't get to have any more campfires until the weather turns wet and cool again. Unfortunately, we have now survived 2 summers in a row where there has been no ban (meaning it's been too cold and wet out). Typically though we get our s'more fix from February to June (yes February, you read that right, we have some of our best fires when we're celebrating that's it's not snowing out, even though I love the snow. Run on sentence much?) Anywho, sometimes in August when I'm up at the cabin and just want a s'more that I can't have (and I don't want to roast one on the BBQ because it's just not the same), I have this little treat. It's really simple. Nutella and graham wafers. Nutella on the graham wafer and a wafer on top and squish. Mmm, because really, the marshmallow is not the best part of a s'more in my opinion. All it does is melt the chocolate (which is what you really want), but because the Nutella is not a solid, you don't need a hot marshmallow. So problem solved in an oh, so delicious way.

Ingredients

Nutella

Graham Wafers

Directions

~Spread Nutella on one side of a graham cracker.

~Place another wafer on top.

~Squish down to make a sandwich.

Enjoy

*On another s'more note, I just want to mention the other trick we have always used when making s'mores and that is instead of having to cart around a package of graham wafers and a bar of chocolate, you can use chocolate covered digestive cookies (Peak Freans) that have the one side of the cookie coated in chocolate. At one point they even had an orange flavoured biscuit which was very good.*

#1 Breakfast - Raspberry Nutella English Muffin

So, this is why I had to put the lemon curd english muffin as #4 on my breakfast countdown list. Simply because I couldn't help but compare it while eating it to this out of this world treat that I for some reason call breakfast.

Have I told you that I'm a little obsessed with nutella? And by a little, I really mean I don't consider my day worthwhile if I haven't eaten some form of nutella. I know, I know, it's probably not the best thing for me to be eating daily, and in the morning for that matter, but really if this is the worst thing I'm eating / doing on a daily basis then I consider myself okay. Anyway, this was the creation that got me eating and loving breakfast. I used to just eat breakfast because I had to, and I usually consumed as little as possible, simply for the reason that I never found any breakfast foods worth eating. Sure, I like waffles and pancakes, but those were never a before school / work breakfast in our house. I went years without eating a slice of toast or a bowl of cereal, because while I didn't dislike either of them, I didn't love them and for that reason alone, I didn't find them worth eating. And don't even get me started on the atrocious thing called eggs. Then last summer everything changed. I can honestly say, that I have loved eating breakfast every morning now for almost a year. All thanks to this amazing idea I had last summer when our berry bushes were overflowing with fresh raspberries. I couldn't tell you what got me thinking of this, but all I can say is I'm glad I did because it is absolutely pure bliss. I actually made an amazing torte that tasted very similar to this awhile back. Yes, my breakfast tastes the same as my dessert (that's why I like breakfast now obviously.)

So, last September, the fresh berries dwindled away and I was stuck with a predicament. In the end, I started using frozen raspberries. All I would do would be microwave them to defrost them. But, because frozen berries just don't have the same flavour as fresh, I ended up over defrosting them and heating them just until they started to mush down into a sauce. Now, there was some good flavour. No sprinkling of sugar required for these heated raspberries. They make a perfect sauce all on their own.

If you're not someone who enjoys breakfast, give this a try. Sure, you could find something healthier to eat than nutella, but if it gets you eating breakfast, that's all that really matters isn't it? Trust me, you won't be disappointed with this. It is absolutely heavenly and you just have to try it. So, without anymore fanfare...

#1 Breakfast: Raspberry Nutella English Muffins

Simply toast your English Muffin. Top with Nutella and then with either fresh or frozen (microwaved to heat until saucy) raspberries.

Enjoy

Bran Muffins You'll Actually Eat

What do you think when you hear the phrase Bran Muffin? Yeah, that's what I thought. Now, imagine two things 1) banana and 2) nutella. Have I got your attention yet? Oh yeah, and what if I told you next that they're still healthy (no butter and very little oil).

The funny thing about bran muffins is that the one single muffin I remember from my young childhood was Timmy's Oat Bran Date & Orange Muffin. I was probably only 5 or so but I recall that being my go to muffin when everyone went for coffee. I don't know now if I liked that taste of it, or just the name, but it's still pretty ironic that I liked bran as a 5 year old and then wouldn't touch it for many years after. I think it has always been that bran muffins always seem to have nuts or raisins in them, and I'm not found of raisins. Anyway, this recipe has not sign of raisins, or any other stereotypical bran muffin add in for that matter.

Okay, so these are the bran muffins that I most definitely will be adding to my make again muffin collection. They are great. They're moist and wonderful and have a hint of healthiness mixed in with a side of nutella. Unfortunately, nutella has dairy in it and so I halved this recipe (and still got 9 fair sized muffins) and made another type of dairy free muffins for the lactose intolerant among us. Next time, I might make the full batch but split it and add peanut butter to half and nutella to the rest, to save me having to make two batches one after the other. There's nothing worse than having to wash bowls you just used, to then go and dirty them again. The other thing I did for this recipe was I substituted some whole wheat flour for all purpose. Usually I split it and do half and half, but for this recipe I did 1 C. Whole Wheat Flour and 1/2 C. All Purpose. Eventually I'm trying to completely eliminate all purpose flour, but I don't want to make a complete swap right away on a recipe, because of the weight difference between the two flours. I'm also just realizing now as I type this that I swapped out the buttermilk for some vanilla soy milk with a bit of lemon juice added in to make it buttermilk-like. Oops, I guess I'm so used to not cooking with dairy milk, that even when other ingredients aren't dairy free, I still reach for the soy milk. Ha! I didn't even realize I did that until just now, some 4 days after the fact. I won't keep you from this recipe any longer.

Recipe from Baking Bites.

Ingredients

Makes 18 muffins

1 1/2 C. All Purpose Flour (or a combination of whole wheat and all purpose-see above comment)

1 C. Oat Bran or Quick-Cooking Oatmeal

1 Tbsp. Cocoa

1 Tsp. Baking Powder

1/2 Tsp. Baking Soda

1/2 Tsp. Salt

2 Tbsp Vegetable Oil.

3/4 C. Brown Sugar

2 Large Eggs

1 Tsp. Vanilla

1 C. Mashed Banana (about 2 bananas)

6 Tbsp. Nutella

1 C. Buttermilk

additional Nutella for topping

Directions

~Preheat oven to 375 F.

~Line muffin tins with liners or grease

~In a large bowl, combine flour, bran, cocoa, baking powder, soda and salt. Whisk to combine.

~In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, eggs, banana, nutella and buttermilk until smooth.

~Poor wet mixture into dry, and stir until just combined.

~Fill each muffin tin.

~Drop 1-2 tsp of nutella onto top of each muffin and swirl around with a toothpick (this didn't work so well for me. It really just clumped, but don't worry it ended up looking fine and still tasting good.)

~Bake until toothpick comes out clean from centre of muffin. Approximately 13-15 minutes.

~Cool muffins in tin slightly then remove to cool completely on a rack.

Enjoy

Oh yeah, I'm kind of happy with how these pictures turned out for once.