Most of the big breakfasts I cook are on the weekends or holidays. During the week we’ve always fended for ourselves. That fending has looked different over the years. When the girls were young I had to fend for them too, but as they aged they were in charge of what to eat before they started their days.
The Deer Hunter has been fortunate to have a kitchen, or at least a semblance of one, at most of the places he’s worked. He usually gets to work early enough to whip himself something up before starting the workday.
For the last couple of years I’ve been eating an apple, a handful of almonds, and sometimes a spoonful of cottage cheese for breakfast.
Although we really look forward to those large old fashioned breakfasts I make on the weekends, sometimes there’s just not time to fit them in with all the things going on around our home.
When that happens I typically make a quick bacon and egg sandwich, baked hand pies with eggs, or pancakes. Every once in a while I get a hankering for Granny’s French toast and make it.
I’ve seen all sorts of fancy French toast recipes over the years, and even tried a few of them. I’ve also eaten French toast in restaurants and had some that was pretty good. But none of it compares to the kind I grew up with Granny making. I’m sure my preference for her simple recipe comes from the fact that I ate it as a child, and that she typically only made it for us when we were sick so there’s a strong comfort factor to the taste.
Granny’s simple French toast
- light bread
- egg or eggs depending on how many you’re feeding
- milk
- vanilla
- butter
- syrup
Break an egg or more if needed into a pie plate and whisk. Add a little milk, a little sugar, a little vanilla and mix well. Dip pieces of light bread into egg mixture making sure each side is covered well. Fry in butter in hot cast iron pan. Drizzle with syrup before eating or not. When I was young I preferred mine plain.
Last night’s movie: Why We Prune Tomato Plants | The Garden is Laid by!
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when my mom made it for us we always used strawberry preserves. I still like it this way but hard to match my moms french toast. Funny how we still have that taste in us.
My recipe is basically the same as yours EXCEPT that I always fry it in bacon grease instead of butter. And I salt it as well. This makes a slightly crunchy texture on the outside that I like
I love my dad’s French toast; pretty sure all he uses is egg and cinnamon. He will be 87 this year, but he still makes it for me and my sister when we are there!
That’s the way Mama made when I was growing up. The cast iron skillet is the secret.
First I want to tell you how much our family enjoys your videos and all you share about your heritage. I am from north ga. and can relate to many things you share.
I make French toast just like your mama’s. The only thing I do differently is add a little cinnamon and dust with powder sugar. It is a treat for our family too. It’s one of my grandsons favorites and I love doing it for him .I hope he makes” mims” french toats for his kids someday.”
Thank you for giving us something to watch that always makes us feel happy and hopeful .
We are praying for Miss Cindy and all of you. I lost my daddy in March and my heart breaks for ya’ll. Especially the deer hunter.
One good thing about being retired; you’ve always got time for a big breakfast.
All I’ll say is “yes ma’am”.
Sounds good to me! Thank you for sharing!
When I was growing up I hadn’t heard of the word “french toast”. My mom use to make something that we called “fried bread” which I assume must have been similar to what is now called “french toast”. I can’t recall how she made it but I vaguely recall that she would make up some heated sugar and water to pour over the “fried bread”.
I love the concept of Breakfast for Dinner. When I was younger, I was much more of a morning person. It was nothing to stand over the stove & cook piece after piece of French toast or make home made buttermilk pancakes. These days, not so much.
However, I am still an expert with my scrambled eggs in the mornings. At my mom’s I can make a big breakfast. This is only because she sleeps so late. The last time I made J some of my eggs, he looked at his plate & started laughing. Then he asked me where the toast was! It hadn’t even occurred to me to toast some bread. My eyes were only half open, still covered with sleep. He still loves to tease me about this.
French toast is & was my absolute favorite breakfast. Granny’s recipe is the same way my mom & I make it. No syrupfor me. Instead I spread jelly on one piece, cover it up with another piece & sprinkle powdered sugar on top.
These days I eat oatmeal with fresh fruit or hummus for breakfast.
Sunday mornings are my favorites. J cooks me hash browns. Yesterday when the potatoes were finished cooking, he decided to sprinkle cheese on top. Although, I had cleaned out the fridge, I left Tyler’s snacks & such alone. TJ (my youngest) is traveling to Sweeden tomorrow, so I figured I would get to that after he leaves.
Lo & behold, the cheese J pulled out of the fridge was part of TJ’s stash. J sprinkled it all over the hash browns before realizing that it was moldy.
Some days I believe our animals and our compost pile eats better than we do!
Ninety degrees here at 11 a.m. which leaves me with extra time to catch up on some reading .
I really do love & appreciate your content, Tipper. Thank you.
French toast, pancakes, and light bread are no-no’s in my Type II food regimen. I enjoyed them all in the past. I used to make French toast the same way with a drop or 2 of vanilla.
I grew up with breakfast, dinner and supper as the meals of the day. Lunch crept in later. Now, I don’t eat anything before 2:00PM or after 8:00PM; so we have hour main meal of the day at supper. My ‘breakfast’ is 2 boiled eggs and 4 ounces of V-8 or tomato juice between 2-3:00PM. Supper is usually a meal with meat, a green vegetable and sometimes a starch, usually ‘fried’ sweet potatoes baked in an air fryer; but in the summer, supper often becomes soup and a salad or sandwich on whole grain bread or sourdough bread.
I enjoyed the CA video last night. You and Matt have done a great job putting in this year’s garden. What y’all do with your space is awe inspiring. You mentioned a FL weave for tying up tomatoes. Maybe next time you can demonstrate that for those of us unfamiliar with it. In the Texas heat – it was 107 on our patio at 7:00 pm yesterday – we don’t garden except a few herbs in pots and some flowers. To have tomatoes in Texas, you have to have them planted in February because the soil heats up past what they can tolerate by June. IIRC when the soil temp gets into the 80s, tomatoes start to dry up and die. Between late frosts and early heat ups, I have never been successful with tomatoes here but grew them in central NC and FL.
“Light Bread” is just fine. Anyone can figute it out. Thanks for sharing.
I’m not a big fan of French toast and my wife likes it better than I do. Something we fix a fried egg put on 12 grain bread with mustard and dill pickles. Other times it’s scrambled eggs on bread with mayonnaise.
I was such a quirky eater as a child, I would eat the same thing over and over until I tired of it. Unfortunately, this great little breakfast dish is something I have not tried since I was about ten years old. I suppose it was because that is something a child can learn fairly easily, so mostly neither my sis nor I ever fix that. Gravy and potatoes is something we never tired of, because Mom was the master of that combo. I have checked with her family in the past, and they all were familiar with a regular breakfast of fried potatoes and cream gravy. I do need to use your recipe to make a great breakfast for my grandson. Bet he will love it!
One day it hit me in my late 40’s I was like a toddler with my diet. I began standing around the counter wondering about, maybe have a few slices of cheese, a bunch of grapes, a handful of chips, and a few crackers and that was dinner. As I get older I realize dinner is what I say! I’m not even sitting sometimes. Lol I should’ve known Granny’s French toast held the secret vanilla touch. I’ve kept that a secret. You have to have real butter and real syrup or it’s a washout. Also I like a bunch of berries on the side. Yum yum! After 50 I officially do what I please like Fried Green Tomatoes…. that’s my attitude and it really takes off the pressure.
That is my recipe, too! I do think the pan makes a difference. I like mine with extra butter melted on top then sprinkled with white sugar – love the crunch while I eat the bites. (Syrup is just too sweet and I won’t let me taste the yummy browned butter and rich egg.) People often say that sugar on top is too much sugar but they don’t know how much is in syrup and their toast is swimming in it. I’ll stick to the crunch.
I’ve made french toast the same for decades…glass pie dish except heavier the bread, the happier my tummy was longer…and I prefer a heavy hand of cinnamon too.
Since I only make it 4 or 5 times a year now, I only get the maple syrup rather than all that corn syrup or sugar. Often made own by adding water & a pat of butter perhaps with a generous amount of honey. If one of the adult kids are over, I like to have the electric griddle on the table so each can cook own at the table.
Few years back, took my Aunt & Uncle to breakfast, cooked own pancakes at the table…they provided batter in pitchers & fruit ie berries. It was enjoyed by all!
This is exactly how my mother made it except that she put powdered sugar on it instead of syrup. I still make it like this and we love it, too!
As far as I can remember, my mom never made French toast for her family. I don’t ever recall eating more than one in my lifetime. Light bread would have been called a convenience food back then and we didn’t see many loaves of Betsy Ross Bread until I was older. My ex-husband had to have breakfast that would make any cardiologist cringe. His bowl of gravy was made in the grease from the pound of bacon or sausage I fried. He had 3-4 eggs and homemade biscuits to top it off. Those meals made me sick and wore me out. I decided if I could get rid of him I would eat Pop-Tarts or cookies for breakfast for the rest of my life. Today’s breakfast will be a few Oreos and coffee. I eat a healthy lunch and supper.
Tipper, appreciate Granny’s French Toast recipe. It does indeed look special. I remember my mother’s special oatmeal cookies She made them for us and not vry often. And only after we begged for years for the recipe, she told us to just look at it on the Quaker oat meal box! But, Tipper, you’d better start saying “white bread” instead of “light bread” so that many outside your area will know what you mean!
We had no French toast at my house growing up so I never developed a yen for it. My wife likes it. I am not a gifted cook, sorta like a plow horse compared to a throughbred, just a ‘getting by’ kind of ‘cooker’.
You are right, there are foods that make a connection with our personal history and sometimes they are just the very thing we want, or maybe need. One of those for me is gingerbread because my Grandma made it for us grandkids. I still say Cracker Barrel needs to have it on their menu all the time. Just be something wrong when gingerbread is hard to.find.
We love French toast but I make it with Ezekiel Bread because we don’t eat white bread. We like it with Vermont maple syrup, butter and powdered sugar sprinkled on top. I guess having a healthier bread helps make up for all the sweeteners, at least I tell myself that 🙂 If we eat breakfast it is only on Saturdays, we eat breakfast type food for supper at least one night a week.
I make my French Toast with 2 eggs beaten , a tsp of pure vanilla extract and a cup of whole or 2% milk. Have a cinnamon shaker on standby. I whisk it well in a bowl large enough to put the bread in and flip it over. I use either Texas Toast or my favorite is Sara Lee Artesano bread. It’s the same thickness as Texas Toast. When I dip the bread in the milk and turn it over I have my cinnamon shaker ready and quickly sprinkle it lightly cover the top. I then transfer the bread with cinnamon side down first. Then I sprinkle the exposed side with more cinnamon. I use a griddle to cook mine in on medium to medium high heat. 1 1/2 to 2 minutes per side. Practice makes perfect. No butter on mine. It gets soaked in syrup.
It’s been a while since I’ve made French Toast. I make mine like your Granny does. Sometimes, I’d use actual french bread sliced thick, but to be honest, light bread is just as good. I found that if the bread is starting to get a little dried out, it absorbs the egg mix quicker.
I do love a good breakfast with the usual suspects! Sometimes a quick, east, simple meal, like the French toast you mentioned is just right. It’s very satisfying, and not just when I’m not feeling well!
These are the same ingredients we used to make French toast. The only thing that might be different would be the bread, I liked to use Texas toast. I often made this or pancakes on Saturday . Now I haven’t made either one in more than a year. .I would always cook breakfast while my wife would always cook a big supper even after working all day. She would be satisfied with a piece of toast but never turned down down a big breakfast if somebody else cooked it. Dinner was usually a sandwich or something left from night before. Even though the company I worked for had a full service cafeteria that was open 24 hours a day for all shifts, I would take a sandwich to work everyday. I only bought lunch a few times. Notice it was lunch at work, breakfast, dinner, and supper at home.
My husband works an afternoon shift, so we eat our main meal at noon. Once a week, I make breakfast for dinner @ noon. He likes that better than, say, kielbasa & sauerkraut after he just got up at 10am. I make all sorts of different types, but he hates pancakes and french toast is liked by all 4 of us – so it is a frequent ‘guest’ to dinner. We have a disagreement on what to call our meals. I was raised on a farm & we called the midday meal dinner, if you were eating your main meal @ 12. Then in the evening you called it supper & it would be something light – sandwich, soup, etc… If your midday meal was a sandwich we called it lunch & Dinner in the evening. My husband argues that its just lunch & dinner – noon & 5:30ish & there is no differentiation between what you’re eating at what time & what you call it. Have you ever heard of this – who’s right?
My great grandmother always served a big meal at noon, then back out to work for my bachelor great-uncle & hands. Then after evening milking & chores, you’d come in and get you something light to eat. On Fridays, it was always eggs, because we are Catholic. Back in the day, they didn’t eat meat any Friday. This is how I like to do it too, with the times. You have the whole rest of the day to burn off those midday calories.
That French Toast recipe sounds great! I will be making it the next time I make this dish. My own way of making French Toast has always been very basic – eggs, a little milk added, and cinnamon. I whip that together, dip the bread in it, and fry it in coconut oil. I like my French Toast with butter and syrup. Several years ago, when I still lived in San Diego, I use to meet family or friends at Mimi’s Cafe for breakfast often. I loved their French Toast that had berries and cream cheese sandwiched between, two slices of bread, dipped in a French Toast batter, then fried. It was sprinkled with powdered sugar when done cooking. Now I am hungry for that for breakfast! My typical breakfast everyday is eggs scrambled with onions, mini peppers and spinach. Tabasco sauce sprinkled on before eating, of course! I make bacon or sausage to go along with that, plus some kind of starch – fried potatoes, various breads or muffins, or those potato cakes you can get in Walmarts frozen potato/hash brown section. And a piece of fruit to top off breakfast. I eat my meals kind of backwards. I have a big breakfast, my main meal at lunch, and either leftovers or a pita sandwich, wraps, or other sandwich at dinner. I sleep better on a light dinner. Thank you again for this wonderful recipe!
Donna. : )
I haven’t eaten French toast it a long time. I used to like it and eat it often but these days It seems I take the course of least resistant and eat my quick and easy oatmeal. There are a lot of very good breakfast choices out there, but I just don’t bother any more.
Eggs are the traditional breakfast food and I love eggs but I usually eat them for supper.
Nice read…as a matter of fact, I am making French Toast for the hubby this morning…have a Blessed day.