The Most Important Things…

There is an old saying that “You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.”

Honestly, I think it’s more like “You don’t know what you’re missing until you finally have it.”

For my entire adult career, I’ve pretty much been working 12+ hour shifts. Sometimes it was 7am to 8am; but for a good majority of it, I was working the night shift from 7pm to 8am. While I may have only been working 3 days a week, those days were never the same from week to week. The schedule and work flow was often chaos. I felt like The 4 days a week I did have off work were mostly spent on catching up on sleep. Needless to say, I missed a lot with my family…because I don’t think I was fully present even when I was present. I realized this schedule wasn’t working for me and my family anymore; especially not since my husband was also working a job Monday through Friday now.

So recently, I made a giant leap of faith and took on a new role within my company.  It meant a bit of a pay cut, but I gained so much more from the change to my schedule and my workflow. I now, for the first time in my adult life, have holidays and weekends off with my family. This I am finding out is worth so much more, and serves as more of a motivator to me, than any amount of money the company could throw at me.

Because now I have time.

I’m not frantic and hectic trying to fit as much in to the few days I have. I can just have a lazy day in on the weekends. I have time now to research healthier meals and recipes, not just fix junk food or pick up fast food all the time because we are all too exhausted to cook. I can enjoy not only eating those healthy dinners with my family every night, but I can also enjoy cooking those meals with my husband… As evidenced this morning by getting to cook breakfast with him for our kids. I never knew cooking French toast on a Saturday morning could bring me such joy!

Speaking of French toast, I found a version of it that doesn’t use any sugar or added sweeteners, so it is much healthier in that respect. Also, I found a “veggie” (it is still made with wheat, so not suitable for those with a wheat or gluten allergy) bread at Aldi that has a 1/4 cup of veggies mixed in it, that my kids actually will eat, and it is perfect for making french toast with! The kids don’t know it is made with potato, sweet potato, pea, carrot, cauliflower, kale, and tomato; but they love it, and I’m not going to tell them.

This bread is great for sandwiches too, but when you make it into French toast, it is sweet enough that you don’t have to add any syrup to it. Just add a couple pats of real butter and you’re good to go! So without further ado:

Garden- Style Family French Toast

8-10 slices L’oven Fresh Garden Style bread

4 eggs

4 TBSP heavy whipping cream

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

4 TBSP real butter, sliced into several “pats”

16 lbs. family love

In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, heavy cream, cinnamon, vanilla, and salt.

Place 1 slice bread in egg mixture and allow to soak for. Turn bread over a few times so it will soak up the egg mixture as much as possible.

Heat 1-2 small pats of butter in a non-stick pan on medium heat until melted, and swirl around pan to coat.

Place egg-mixture soaked bread in pan and cook on each side until browned.

Repeat with remaining slices of bread. Serve immediately with just a small pat of butter on top. No need for syrup makes this more keto-friendly, but your kids might still want syrup. So serve it with syrup if you desire “as part of this complete breakfast”…

Makes 4-10 servings (2 slices of bread is a serving according to the Garden-Style bread’s  label. But these are very rich when made in to French toast, so 1 may be enough).

This is a recipe easy enough that the kids can help, although it may make quite a mess. So please don’t say I didn’t warn you!

This french toast will also freeze well, so you can microwave for about 30 seconds or even put in your toaster for a quick, on-the-go breakfast before work or school.

As the old sayings go: “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day” and “Family is the most important thing in life”…I try to bring the two together as much as possible now.

I hope you and your family will enjoy making this French toast recipe together as much as you enjoy eating it together.

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Disclaimer: Neither L’oven Fresh bread nor Aldi paid me or otherwise endorsed me to write this blog. These are my own opinions based on my real experiences. Seriously though, this bread is pretty great…  I also wouldn’t mind being sponsored by Aldi in the future, either.