Monday, August 27, 2012

Leftover French stick

I think I've been watching too many cooking shows lately - it can sometimes be a bad influence. For instance, while watching Masterchef this evening, I decided I had to make myself some French toast (p156).


This wasn't entirely motivated by my choice of early-evening viewing: I bought a French stick over the weekend and had only managed to devour about two-thirds of it. I knew that the French toast recipe remained uncompleted, and that at the bottom of the page that features this recipe, there's a note that French stick makes great French toast.


Almost every page in the Edmonds book has a note at the bottom - some are just general hints, many are things you know already, but some are hints that pertain to recipes on the same page. Take note of the notes - you might learn something.


I couldn't really have just French toast for tea though, so I decided to make myself a decent plate of salad, by way of soothing my naughty-food conscience. I had enough bits and bobs to make a reasonable salad, but I needed a bit more substance if I was going to have it as a main - why not use some more of the French stick to make some croutons (p93)?


The crouton recipe is featured in the soups chapter, but I haven't got too many soups left that would be suitable for croutons - and we've all had croutons in a salad before, so why not? I sliced my remaining French stick, set some slices aside for later, and chopped the rest up for croutons.


I was surprised to see there was no oil or butter added to the croutons - you just put them in the oven to bake, and shake them up every few minutes until they're crispy. Easy enough.


Meanwhile, I chopped up some bits and pieces for my salad. I probably should have made an Edmonds dressing as well, but I didn't have the ingredients on hand for any of the remaining dressing recipes, so I had to make do with some bought stuff.


The croutons were ready fairly quickly, so I added them to my salad and sat down to eat. Well, it's no accident that these particular croutons are meant to go with soup. They'd be great with soup. In a salad, they're ok, but a bit dry - I think you do need a bit of oiliness in a crouton for a salad. But with soup, the moisture is already there, so just baking them is a simple and low-fat way to do it.


After I'd downed my salad, I returned to the kitchen to make the french toast. I beat an egg with a little milk, and dipped my little slices of French stick in the eggy mixture before frying them in butter. Interestingly, the recipe actually has salt and pepper added to the egg mix, but since I was looking to go sweet with mine, I left that bit out. 




When my bread slices were golden on both sides, I transferred them to a plate and added maple syrup and Greek yoghurt. Yum. Turns out that note at the bottom of the page was right: French stick does make good French toast!



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