Reuse: Fronch Toast

My family had a few extra loaves of Italian bread delivered with our Father’s Day meal a few weekends back. With VwaV‘s Fronch Toast recipe in mind, I gladly rescued a loaf from my father’s characteristic penchant for hasty disposal. This trait, through the years, has had me sifting through garbage bags for my important papers, etc that had been presumed rubbish. It became a bit amusing after a while. Eventually I learned my lesson (Everything of value and importance has its place. And that place is not in the common area.) and have picked up that habit of environmental order, equating it, like my father had, to structured and stress-reduced living… though not to his extreme… yet.

With food, I’m a little different. I see extended life spans, options for reutilizing. I hate to throw food out. So much so that I’d rather pack it in my weekend bags with half-baked ideas about incorporating it (e.g. pitch-black plantains, bushels of mint, dried up oranges) into meals with my boyfriend. (He has no such qualms about throwing away fermenting foods and throws out what I cannot.) I suppose composting will solve all of these peccadilloes when I have the space to do so. Anyway, I took the bread, knowing that if my dad didn’t toss it out when I was there (because I’d certainly object as one of those liberal environmental types), he would dispose of it when I left. So I get to make Fronch Toast, the loaf doesn’t clutter the kitchen and my dad doesn’t have to hear my rant about wasting food. A win-win-win.

Moving on to the Fronch Toast, Isa created the simplest and most delicious recipe for this breakfast staple. The corn starch and soy creamer coats the bread with a nice skin while the chick pea flour (the most wonderful flour ever) creates a moist egginess, for lack of a better word, that is characteristically French toast all the way. Topped with some real maple syrup and Earth Balance and you got yourself an amazing and quick breakfast. Top with berries and powdered sugar and impress all your non-vegan friends. Ah, this is the best afterlife for a loaf of stale Italian bread!