Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

Every Saturday morning my wife makes us waffles for breakfast, but don't tell my kids or they will whine about how they ever got was dry cereal. Then on Sunday morning I make some kind of egg dish for breakfast. This Sunday I decided to tempt fate and skip the eggs, well kind of since French Toast does involve eggs. Since strawberry season is going strong I decided to make strawberries the star of breakfast today. Strawberry season has been going on for awhile here in the south. In fact my wife has already canned her strawberry jam for the season. Now we can sit back and enjoy the berries until the season is over. The recipe below is for 1 serving (2 slices of bread with stuffing between them). If you make more you maybe able to cut back a little, for instance I used 2 eggs for 2 servings and had enough egg left over to make the dogs happy. I made the filling and mixed the eggs and vanilla the night before and refrigerated them. In the morning I only had to get out the filling and whisk the eggs a bit more.

Strawberry Stuffed French Toast
Filling
1 oz Neufchatel Cheese, this is like a cream cheese only low fat. use Cream cheese if you can't find it
1 tbs strawberry jam, I used my wife's homemade
2 strawberries but into little pieces

French Toast
2 slices of bread, stale if not let it sit out overnight
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla

Garnish
Powdered Sugar for garnish
3 or 4 strawberries cut into pieces

Mix the Filling ingredients together. If it tastes a little to cheesy add more jam. The goal is to get a a texture thick enough to spread so it doesn't melt and come out of the toast. Take a slice of bread and spread with the filling. Put the second pice of bread on top of it.

Whisk the vanilla and egg together. Pour the egg mixture into a pie pan. Press the " strawberry sandwich" into the egg mixture, when the first side is coated flip it over and coat the second side. Place the coated "strawberry sandwich" in a frying pan that has been preheated to medium high. Cook until egg is cooked and Golden brown. Then flip over and cook second side until the
the second side is golden brown. Remove from heat and place on a plate. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and then place strawberries on top.

Sausage and Cannellini Bean Crostini

This was not originally a crostini recipe but we always ate it with a crusty bread. Eventually I started serving it on the bread when we had Italian "tapas". My first couple of posts will feature some of my other Italian "tapas" By using turkey sausage you can make this a fairly healthy meal/crostini.

Warning teaching moment. A crostini is a thinly sliced piece of bread, usually a baguette, toasted with olive oil or butter and garlic. Bruschetta is sliced thicker, and generally grilled, then rubbed with garlic and drizzled with olive oil.

For the Crostini

1 baguette sliced into rounds, about 1/4 inch thick about 16 pieces total

Olive oil for drizzling

For the Sausage and Cannellini

2 tsp. olive oil, plus some for drizzling

1/2 small white onion, diced finely

1 Italian Sausage, 4 to 5 oz cut into a small dice

2 cloves of garlic minced

1 can (15.5 oz) of Cannellini beans, drained and rinsed

Preheat oven to 325°.

Drizzle olive oil lightly over the baguette slices. Then put the slices on a baking sheet and put in oven for 5 minutes. Remove from oven, they will not be browned but they will be lightly toasted. Set aside so they will cool.

Saute the onions in the olive oil until they are translucent. Add the sausage pieces, cook until browned. Add the beans and garlic and cook until they are heated through. Drizzle olive oil over the bean mixture. Take a scoop of the beans and place on top of the crostini.