Last night, celebrating a friend’s soon to be 40th birthday, there was Patron. And tomato wine, and lots and lots of giggling like fools. After nights like these, light and healthy is not my first choice. Since I’m moving soon, I’m not buying a whole lot of new groceries outside of bread, milk and eggs.  Sweet and savory on a plate is usually my first choice after a night of lots of giggles. I had some smoked salmon and parmesan cream cheese left over in the fridge, so protein and dairy were handled. There’s a couple apples in the fruit bin, so they were peeled and sliced and dropped in a pan with some nutmeg, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Back to the fridge, there’s some left over liquored fruit. dried cherries, raisins, and cranberries that had been soaking in rum for about a week. I use these as a kicker in apple pie, so I know they’ll play nice with the apples in caramel playing in the sauce pan.  Brought to a boil to melt the sugar, then covered and reduced to a simmer to let that brown sugar thicken up to a syrup.

Take any day old bread and thick slice it. Make your custard base for your French toast. My version is heavy cream, a couple eggs, some grated cinnamon from the stick, and grated nutmeg, some maple flavoring, and a little rum. The rum helps the toast form a crisper crust in the skillet. Microplanes are awesome for grating off nutmeg and cinnamon. The flavor is better on fresh grate, and microplanes give a fine powder that blends easily into your custard. Dip in your French toast and let it sit to soak up the eggy goodness, then into a skillet where you’ve melted off a little butter. Brown the toast on both sides. Top off with your caramelized apples. 

Since the folks in the Northeast got socked with snow, and most times snow is coming, folks hit the store hard on the stuff you’d normally need for French toast, I’m pretty sure if you are reading this from a snowed-in place,  you already have most of these ingredients in house.

Dig in.