Simple French Toast

Breakfast might be my favorite meal to cook. When I have house guests and people in from out of town, I love to get up early before everyone is awake to start cooking. I'll usually whip up some pancakes, keeping them warm in the oven as I go through batch upon batch, waiting for everyone to get up and get ready for the day. When I dragged myself out of bed on Saturday morning, however, I was starving, sleepy, and in desperate need of something a little faster than pancakes.

Now, in my non-vegan past I would always grab a Slimfast or a Diet Coke and run out the door, usually about to be late for class. But on a lazy Saturday morning, I needed something a bit more substantial. Besides: who serves Diet Coke to guests for breakfast?

I flipped through a few cookbooks, looking for a recipe that would be fast and that I could make with ingredients I already had in the kitchen. What I found was a recipe called "Phenomenal French Toast" in the Vegan Vittles cookbook. Vegan Vittles is a great cookbook if you're looking for healthy, basic vegan meals. It's got some great soups and one of my favorite pasta dishes, "Unstuffed Shells."

Even though the book calls these "phenomenal"--and they are quite delish--I think it's a bit of an overstatement considering how fast and easy these are to whip up. I tweaked the recipe a bit, as per usual, and it turned out a great breakfast for two. I served it up with soy sausage from the Publix Greenwise brand. It certainly wasn't the classiest or most impressive meal I've come up with, but it's a damn lot better than breakfast from a can.

Simple French Toast
-6 slices of bread
-1 cup nondairy milk
-6 tablespoons flour
-2 & 1/4 teaspoons nutritional yeast
-pinch of salt
-maple syrup (to top the toast when it's done!)

• Whisk together the milk, flour, nutritional yeast, and salt. Pour the batter into a shallow bowl or pan.
• Dip the slices of bread in the batter, making sure both sides are well-saturated.
• Oil a large skillet and put it over medium-high heat. Once the skillet is hot, add the battered slices in a single layer. (If you can't fry up all the bread at once because you've got a tiny skillet like me, heat your oven to 300 and keep the finished bread slices warm on a baking sheet until you're done with all the batches)
• Once the bottom is nice and browned, flip the slices and cook until the other side matches!

This is about as simple as you can get with a home-cooked breakfast. Serve with a little tea or coffee and some soysage and, voila, happy houseguests! It was my first attempt at French toast (or... Freedom toast?), vegan or otherwise, and it was enjoyed by all--despite the fact that I was half-asleep the whole time.


Happy Breakfast!