Tag: breakfast

Oh Canada!

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Mr. N in Ontario at 3-years. He couldn’t have been happier – there were Canada flags everywhere!

When Mr. N was about three years old he learned the Canadian national anthem. This may not seem unusual, except for the fact that we don’t live in Canada and we hadn’t taught Mr. N the song. One night, much to our surprise, he began singing the anthem as it played on TV at a sports event. Mike and I were rolling with laughter at Mr. N’s utter cuteness.

Turns out he picked up the song from a Hallmark e-card designed for Canada Day. Back when the cards were free they provided a great source of entertainment for Mr. N who liked to peruse the e-cards and send them to his grandparents – many of them just cracked him up to no end (And I could listen to his laughter all day – best belly giggle in the world!).

So when Mr. N learned that he was going to visit “Oh Canada,” as he called it, later that summer he was beyond excited. His first souvenir: a Maple Leaf flag. It still hangs on the wall of  his playroom today!

While Mr. N’s favorite thing about Canada is still the flag and anthem, he was also quite delighted with the attractions we discovered this summer including the Royal Ontario Museum, the Toronto Zoo and Casa Loma.

The spooky old tunnel to the stables underground at Casa Loma.

Miss A’s favorite thing about Canada, besides the lemon tarts, had to be the Centreville Amusement Park out on the Toronto Islands.

Miss A’s birthday this past summer at the Centreville Amusement Park.

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It’s a Barn Raising – of Sorts

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Both Mr. N and Miss A have summer birthdays. So this year, since we’re in the new house, we decided to get them a swing set for their birthdays. We purchased a beautiful set at a very reasonable price, the catch – we have to build it ourselves. This is no easy feat as you can imagine. There are literally dozens of pieces of wood and hundreds of screws, and nothing is labeled.

This job was beyond dad and I, so much like the barn raisings of long ago, we invited some extra hands to help us put this thing together.

So since we’re raising the swing set and our state this week was Pennsylvania, we decided to whip up a few Amish dishes to get in the spirit of things. We started early yesterday morning with an Amish Stuffed French Toast.

The first step was to cube a loaf of bread.

We placed the bread in a baking dish and then cut up a block of cream cheese and placed it in the bread.

The recipe then called for the use of a pie filling. Instead, we took fresh blackberries that we had frozen from my Grandpa’s garden last summer and combined them with a bit of sugar.

Next we poured them over the first layer of bread.

Then we added the remaining bread over the top. Finally in a bowl we mixed together eggs, milk, vanilla and maple syrup. We poured this over the top layer of bread, followed by a bit of melted butter and cinnamon. The French toast was then refrigerated overnight and baked for 50 minutes at 350F in the morning.

We served the dish with syrup and powdered sugar. However as good as this looked and smelled, it didn’t quite live up to our expectations.

Miss A rated it the lowest with 1 spoon. She barely ate any. Dad and I both gave the French toast 2 spoons. It was okay, but we think would have been better with white bread instead of wheat. And Mr. N seemed to enjoy it the most and gave it 3 spoons. He ate it for breakfast, dinner and again the next morning for breakfast.

As for the barn raising…

after a 12 hour day and having to wait out some rain showers (water and power tools don’t mix), it’s coming along. Here’s hoping tomorrow will be the final day for the “barn raising.”

Print this recipe: Amish Stuffed French Toast

The Sun Will Come Out Tomorrow

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I have to say this has been one of the cloudiest springs in recent memory. That’s not to say it actually is the cloudiest – it could be in fact that my memory has selective recall. That’s been known to happen on occasion. Nevertheless it’s cloudy again. We made these quick, healthy breakfast treats earlier this week, but they would be the perfect way to brighten up a cloudy morning. The recipe is adapted from one we came across in the Taste of Home Comfort Food, Diet Cookbook. It’s also a great way to use up some of the leftover phyllo from the baklawa. (I bought several packages just-in-case my attempt at the recipe went horribly array.)

We began by cutting three phyllo sheets into sixths. We then separated the squares out and placed them in muffin tins – 3 per tin.

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Dessert for Breakfast and Other Infidelities

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We wanted to try an Egyptian dessert this week. We also wanted something healthy so that our waistlines didn’t explode after that Georgia Peach Cobbler. We found a recipe for a strawberry dessert on Tour Egypt and while it’s fairly healthy, I have to say that I’m not really convinced it’s an authentic Egyptian dessert. I’m also uncertain whether it’s a dessert or if it’s breakfast. I think it can easily be both; and if not, well then we just ate dessert for breakfast. I suppose there are worse things that could happen.

The recipe is easy – combine raspberries and sugar in a sauce pan and heat, stirring gently, until a syrup forms.  Continue reading →