french toast

French toast is usually sweet, but blogger Fresh Tart experiments with a savory version, served with a rich, creamy mushroom sauce.

I couldn't eat much of anything this terrible, sad weekend, but as my desire to cook has slowly returned, I'm turning to comfort foods. I made pan-seared steaks with a dried-and-fresh-mushroom pan sauce, and it was just really nice to serve John and Nathan one of their favorite meals.

I made a good amount of the mushroom sauce with savory french toast in the back of my mind. If you only enjoy french toast for breakfast, you're missing out on a terrific and fast lunch or dinner. I used gluten-free bread for the pic (and my stomach), but if I could eat gluten, I'd use challah. Any type of bread works nicely, though, really whatever you have on hand. Because that's the point — savory french toast is a filling, comforting base for leftovers of almost any type, to put on the table quickly.

If you're not a mushroom fan, try spinach sautéed with garlic, perhaps with a spot of sausage in the mix as well, perhaps with a pinch of red pepper flakes. Or thin slices of ham and a spoonful of braised beans. Or roasted squash and fried sage leaves. Or in the Summer, slices of ripe tomato and crispy bacon. (Best. Thing. Ever.) French toast is rich, so a touch of acid and a shower of black pepper strike a delicious balance.

In case you ARE a mushroom fan, the sauce below is a terrific finish for any pan-seared meat that leaves lovely, crusty drippings behind: chicken, steaks, lamb, venison, veal, pork. Just stir in the completed sauce into the hot pan juices, scraping the pan while simmering for a couple of minutes. That's it. However, the sauce is also rich and flavorful on its own, thanks to the beauty of dried wild mushrooms. And sherry. And butter.

See the recipe when you read more.

Weekend brunch is one meal that I typically prefer to eat out. Beyond the fact that I get my Bellini served to me in an actual champagne flute, it's also such a hassle to pull together something even mildly elegant when I roll out of bed late on a Sunday morning. A hassle, that is, until I met the breakfast strata.

The casserole of breakfast fare, the strata layers your favorite early-bird foods in one delightful dish. Normally, it includes eggs, bread, some kind of cured meat, and often a sautéed leafy green for a savory hangover fix. But this weekend, I also had a hankering for something sweet and came across this french toast strata recipe that calls upon soft challah bread, maple syrup, milk, and eggs, punctuated by surprise ingredient chicken sausage. It's a light, fluffy take on the breakfast sweet that's like no french toast I've ever tasted.

And the best part is that you can do all the prep work the night before, so all that's left to do when you stumble out of bed is preheat, bake, and eat. Which leaves ample time to pour your own Bellini. Read on for the recipe.

Need a sweet but healthy treat to start off your weekend? This baked coconut cream French toast that reader be-healthful posted in the Healthy Recipe community group may be just what you need. And it can be made to suit gluten-free diets!

See the recipe when you read more

Good morning! Here's an idea: why not be like Dice215 and make mascarpone-stuffed French toast over the weekend?French toast made from Challah bread stuffed with mascarpone cheese and topped with warm brown sugar banana sauce.

Be sure to check out her blog for the recipe, and if you have a delicious photo to share, put it in the Savory Sights group. It could be featured here on YumSugar!

If French toast is your favorite thing to eat for breakfast, you might faint at the sight of this almond-crusted version that ericairis had.

This made for the perfect Saturday morning breakfast. Yum!

What's your breakfast of champions? Let us know by uploading your grub in the Savory Sights group in our YumSugar Community!

Did you know that September is All-American Breakfast Month? I thought that title was awarded to every month out of the year, but that's probably because I'm breakfast and brunch's biggest fan. The beauty of breakfast's most popular dishes is that many of them, like french toast, only require the most basic of ingredients.

Got bread and eggs? Then you can make a sweet, syrup-baked breakfast on Saturday morning . . . and use the day-old bread to prepare a savory, peppery toast on Sunday. Enhance the flavor of Sunday's version with a topping of tomato jam, olive tapenade, or — my suggestion — caramelized onion and bacon jam. Get your weekend off to the right start when you read more.

When I said my new favorite basic is blueberry sauce, I was definitely not kidding. In addition to using the 15-minute compote in a lavender-vodka martini, I also took the liberty of making French toast on skewers for weekend brunch, and using the sauce in lieu of maple syrup.

I love this dish because it's fun to make and fun to eat, for kids and adults alike. Who can resist bite-sized blocks of breakfasty goodness, lovingly browned to perfection on all six sides? The answer is nobody, especially when it's laced together with wholesome blueberries, raspberries, and bananas, topped with a sprinkle of sugar, and drizzled with the incredible berry compote. For a fun weekend provision to make with the whole fam, read on.