Pumpkin French Toast

**Update: I stumbled upon the recipe on the PPK site, so I've linked to it below. This recipe is meant for the world to see, obviously.**

If you've read basically any post here, you know of my deep and abiding love of brunch. 

This weekend, I got a particular kind of brunch craving. I knew I wanted to have a Thanksgiving-related brunch food, but that we'll be busy on American Thanksgiving Day with cooking an enormous meal to compensate for how we're not eat someone else's enormous meal. Instead of interrupting my live-cam stream of the Macy's parade (easier to find on the internet than you might think) and my cooking marathon, we decided to have a small brunch today with just the two of us. I also realized that I had everything on hand to make the Pumpkin French Toast from Vegan Brunch, which I have to say is my all time favorite cookbook. Everything in it is a winner, from the scrambles to the entrees, to the muffins, to the other sides. I have plans to make the vegan sausage pastry puffs and the smoked almond gravy as Breakfast For Dinner later this week (drool). 

We decided to pair the french toast with a bottle of Rogue's Bacon Maple Ale that Kira gave us back when we ran the half marathon in Fort Wayne. She told me that it was kind of a novelty beer, but that it paired well with brunch, and I thought, "Sold."

Unfortunately, I have to report than neither of us liked this beer basically at all. The smoky flavor is really strong, but it's also pretty sweet. It was fun to try, but I wouldn't seek it out again. However, if you love smokey beers, then this might be your thing. You can read a more in depth but also more negative review over on Cheaper Than Therapy. I think my favorite moment while drinking it was when John said, "Man, something about this beer reminds me of kindergarten." It's the combination of that bacony, greasy, but also syrupy smell that he apparently associates with his elementary school cafeteria. I feel like there is someone out there who this beer is made for, who loves that sausage-waffle-smokey taste.

The french toast was pretty great, and typical of Isa Chandra. The pumpkin takes the place of eggs in the batter, and her spice blend was particularly savory. We both felt like the slices benefitted from a generous sprinkle of confectioners sugar and some syrup. I'm pretty sure we'll make it again over the holidays.

Also,

IT'S THANKSGIVING THIS WEEK WHICH MEANS THE HOLIDAYS ARE HERE! FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now that my fall races and conferences are over, I can devote the rest of my blog posts in 2012 to all things HOLIDAYS. I'm getting excited.

Bread - the Good and the Bad

I've been on kind of a bread-making kick lately. Sure, it takes time to let it rise, but I can usually do other things while that's happening.
























I'll start with the bad: English Muffins. I don't blame the recipe, since I went off the grid and didn't use the flour that it called for. Sure, I thought, I'll use a combination of wheat and white flour! Wheat flour is high in gluten, the way bread flour is! What could go wrong?!

















I knew when kneading them that this was off to a bad start. The dough was so tough I could barely knead it, and it didn't rise at all. But, being stubborn, I decided to proceed and bake them anyways, just to see what would happen. They weren't a total failure, just about 90%. They're really doughy and thick, not at all the light and fluffy English muffins I hoped for. But I'm willing to take responsibility, since I was too tired to bother getting more bread flour for them. Oh well.
































I also made French-bread style rolls this week, and these were really good. My plan was to make a baguette to have with the corn and squash chowder, but that kind of fell through when it came time to roll the dough out, as we were busy making the chowder at the same time. So, to keep things simple, I just divided the dough into 8 rolls, and they turned out great! Like real French bread, they weren't as good the second day (which is why recipes like French toast and bread pudding exist), but they are still great if you slice them in half and toast them. I made myself little turkey sliders on them the next day for lunch, and the homemade bread makes a normal sandwich taste amazing.






















French bread only needs to rise for 2 hours, so it's a lot less time-intensive. If you can remember to start them on time, then it's not too hard to add them to a weekend dinner. They also only have about 3 ingredients: flour, water, yeast.







I think it looks sort of like a whole chicken in this picture, with its wings tucked under.











And last but not least, wheat sandwich bread. This recipe is getting a lot easier to make. I've done it about 3 times, and each time it seems a little more straight forward. As you can see in the picture, I'm still having trouble getting it to relax and let the folds become less...sturdy when I shape it into a loaf for the pan.































After it's had a chance to cool, John usually slices it up, we put it in a gallon-sized ziplock bag in the freezer, to dole out over the week.





















Just like the French bread rolls, this bread makes any sandwich taste better.

We don't make all of our bread, since it's still time consuming. But it's nice to have homemade bread for sandwiches every other week or so. The recipes for the rolls and the sandwich loaf each come from How to Cook Everything, by Mark Bittman.

We go together like bread and nutella*

The weather is beautiful; it's cool and not humid, sunny but doesn't make you feel hot. It's cool enough to drink tea in the evenings and it really makes me feel like school is about to start.

John's been using the bread maker that my mom gave us, cranking out 2 loaves a day.



















I think it cost my mom about $.50 USD and it's already payed for itself in bread for sandwiches.




















He likes to wear the apron that his mom gave him. In this shot, John is opening a new bag of wheat flour.











This is one of the shorter loaves from a few days ago. Since then he's experimented with different types of flour, and they've gotten taller and fluffier. And - get this - he learned that Canadian all-purpose flour (and wheat flour in general) has a higher gluten content than American AP flour (who knew?!), so you can use less yeast. Since we only had American AP flour, John bought bread flour, which also allows you to cut back on the yeast. Today's second loaf was just right. Most of them don't make it to storage for future sandwiches because I eat several slices with peanut butter and/or Nutella.

*John says Nutella is gross.