Leftover Panettone French Toast

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Panettone is a sweet Italian loaf cake that is pretty easy to find in stores during the holiday season. You could bake your own but I’ve read that to make it properly takes LITERALLY DAYS so I think it’s much easier to use a store bought one for this, especially if you buy it after Christmas on clearance for half price.

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ingredients
1/2 of a 750gram/1.65lb panettone, any variety, preferably a little old & stale
2 eggs
1/2 cup whole milk
1/4 tsp vanilla

Slice the rounded top couple inches of the panettone off and set aside to eat later. You’ll be left with a half-cylinder shape. Slice it horizontally into three layers of equal height (like a layer cake would have) and then slice the layers vertically into three wedges (like regular layer cake slices). This will give you nine wedges of panettone.
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Preheat the oven to 200°F and place an oven-safe dish inside. Spray a non-stick 10.5″ square griddle pan with cooking spray and place over medium heat .

In a medium bowl whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla. Dip each side of each panettone wedge into the egg mixture and set on a cooling rack over over a baking sheet to allow the excess mixture to drip off. Place 4-5 panettone wedges in the griddle pan and cook on each side until golden brown, about 2 minutes. Put the first batch of finished wedges in the dish in the oven to keep warm while you cook the second batch.

Serve immediately with maple syrup, fresh berries, or whatever toppings you prefer. Makes nine pieces; serves two adults, one baby and a surly tween who just wants to eat strawberries with maple syrup.

January 3rd

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blackberries & blood oranges for baby’s breakfast // up high // blue skies // last year’s wild roses // bargain-priced panettone that is going to be reborn as french toast // after her nap Gwen makes bold fashion choices// new leggings from auntie // snack time

A couple of months ago Taylor had the brilliant idea of trading in all his old videos games to Future Shop for store credit, and then applying that credit to his Xbox One pre-order. It was a great idea and he ended up with many hundreds of dollars in credit. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to apply the credit to the preorder, so he decided to cancel it, but then he couldn’t do that either? idk, the whole thing was online and even though I was like TWEET AT THEM YOU WILL GET IMMEDIATE RESULTS he elected to email them, and they didn’t reply until the preorder had become an order order. He was going to return the Xbox One and possibly rebuy it in the future with the credit but I was like OH JUST KEEP IT IT’S FINE. Anyway this week he decided to use the credit to buy a new tv, I mean with the credit plus the sales it was PRACTICALLY free.

Of course like everything in our lives it turned into a comedy of errors. He went to pick it up yesterday and OF COURSE it was the only rainy day this week. The sales associate was busy so OF COURSE he had to wait forever, and once he got it home OF COURSE we had to wait until I finished work to install it. We took down the old tv (and moved it into the bedroom, so basically I’M NEVER GETTING OUT OF BED AGAIN) and went to install the wall mount brackets on the new tv and OF COURSE the bolts are the wrong length and OF COURSE none of the other bolts in my massive collection of random bolts are the right length and OF COURSE we didn’t discover this until after the local hardware store closed for the day. OF COURSE OF COURSE OF COURSE. Taylor ended up having to take the train to Home Depot just to buy four bolts at 35 cents each (plus ten cents each for four washers). HOW FRIGGING IDIOTIC.

Eventually we got everything done and this afternoon Taylor set up the bedroom tv properly so we can use it to watch stuff. It’s currently on a stand on my dresser beside the bed (annoying) but we plan on mounting it on the wall opposite the foot of the bed, which will be better. Now I have a big rearranging/cleaning bug so this weekend I am forcing Taylor into tackling his desk with me, which IN SPITE of pretty much years of constant pestering on my part is still surrounded by a giant rat king of cables and wires. WHAT. IS. IT. WITH. DUDES. AND. CABLES. AND. WIRES. EVERYWHERE. It’s like they’ve never heard of cable management, geez.

Also on the agenda for the weekend: taken down the Christmas decorations. IT’S TIME.

Sleepy New Year (January 2nd)

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Idk, my bff baby.
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Portland is happening
On a  special shopping trip to buy more baby proofing equipment because of this monster.
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Sneepy nose
Not a good day to be Gwen's face.
Look at these curls
assorted pics from December 23rd-January 2nd

At midnight on New Year’s Eve Taylor and I snuck into Gwen’s bedroom to make goo-goo faces at her. I’m always so worried about waking her up that I rarely get a chance to see her sleeping anymore, and it’s so sweet. Sleeping kids in general, all curled up in their blankets clutching their teddy bears (or elks, in Gwen’s case), or sprawled across the bed with limbs everywhere (in Sym’s case).

Afterwards I made Taylor stay up really late with me drinking glass after glass of water so we wouldn’t be hungover parents the next day. It worked, we weren’t hungover, but we were the world’s most tired parents instead. I woke up to the sounds of Gwen sweetly babbling in her crib, but that soon escalated to yelling, and I found her standing at the railing, with her elk and soother and other toys flung onto the floor. We think she’s sending them to get help.

Taylor gave her breakfast while I showered, and when I got out I found him lying on the living room floor. I joined him and in no time at all we’d both fallen asleep. At some point I made us both move the couch. Gwen bobbled around us benevolently, giving us hugs and toys and the contents of the recycling bin. At one point she very delicately placed a receipt on a slumbering Taylor’s ear.

How lucky to have such a kind baby, who let us relax and recover? She shared her snacks with us (hand-feeding me Cheerios off the floor) and was perfectly content to have the laziest day possible.