Easter Brunchfast: All About the Syrup, Baby.

Breakfast table of champions.

I had a simple dream for yesterday and by golly, I achieved it.

I wanted to make a really fantastic breakfast for my roommate and myself.

Now, as you can tell from the previous post, I made tsoureki and I decided to turn that homemade bread into french toast. Sausage was obtained from Jewel, Bob Evans brand, in fact (amusing only to me as an Ohioan with a checkered Bob Evans past). Whipped cream. Tangerine-vanilla syrup. Mimosas that involved some freshly squeezed tangerine juice.

Now, part of my allergy means that I can't have fake maple syrup or, indeed, many syrups. I love syrup on waffles and french bread. Pure maple syrup is expensive. As such, I sometimes have a blend of pure maple and agave around, but it's been a bit.

So I made my own. And it was amazing.

The whole of Easter was awesome, in fact, but this as a kick-off (well, dishes as the real kick-off, followed by cooking this, followed by eating this, followed by some laziness and more dishes) made the rest of the day even better. I've been pretty stressed these past few days - friend-drama!

This breakfast makes you forget about that.

For the sausage: mine was just a packet of Bob Evans breakfast sausage, sliced and made into patties and cooked in the skillet until done, according to packet instructions. I sprinkled a little Gateway to the North seasoning on a few of them.

For the whipped cream: Ideally? Heavy whipping cream, zipped into whipped cream. Actually? Low-fat Reddi Whip since, oddly, the diet version is the one with no corn in it. Simply spray and delight! (cash was an issue.)

Mmmmm,

Even cold, this was awesome.

For the French Toast:

- medium slices of tsoureki (or challah or brioche or any bread you are using), I'm pretty sure I made about ten or twelve slices, but my slices were long slices of the loaf and then those were cut in half.
-  one egg
- a few shakes of cake spice (or cinnamon, pinch of ground clove, dash of nutmeg)
- milk - 1/4 cup seems like it'd be too much, but then, I just poured some in the dish and mumbled "coffee".
- one teaspoon of vanilla

Take all but the bread and whisk it together in a bowl.

I AM DELICIOUS

PLEASE SOAK BREAD IN ME

Soak slices of bread in the dish, on both sides, until saturated (and I do mean saturated) with the egg-mixture. In a medium skillet, melt a bit of butter and then start cooking these babies until golden and delicious on each side. Ta-da! Serve hot or, keep the oven on low and keep them warm in there and THEN serve hot when good and ready.

For the syrup:

- the juice of one tangerine
- half teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons of water
- half cup sugar

In a saucepan, over medium heat, melt down the sugar with the water. Add the vanilla and 3/4 of the juice, stirring often, and let reduce over low heat. A lid on it is helpful, but keep an eye on this as the sugar likes to boil up from time to time (especially if the heat is too high, as mine often was it seemed). Using the back of a spoon, let this burn-friendly mix cool a bit and taste to determine if it needs more tangerine (if so, add the rest of the juice) or vanilla.

It'll be thin, sort of like pure maple syrup, until you turn the heat off and let it sit for a minute or so, when it really thickens up. Serve warm but not hot - remember! Cooking sugar can be painful. So please be careful.

Put some of all of this on a plate. Make your mimosa or coffee or glass of skim or whichever.

Cheers with your roommate (or significant other or friends or family or cat) and really love breakfast time.