Fabulous French Toast and Middle School

I have been teaching Skills for Living for the past three weeks.  Last week we started a unit on cooking, definitely one of my favorite life skills.  Twelve and thirteen year olds with an occasional fourteen year old thrown in have few real life skills. We started cooking at an odd point.  Although I spend two days teaching about safe food preparation, there were no lessons on measurements and heat for cooking.  That was okay since the recipe we followed was pretty silent on both.  I learned the following things:

1. For some, cooking is a natural talent.

2. The level of previous cooking knowledge even at this young age is astounding.

3. As is the case with three year olds, if you specifically say not to do something, chances are the child will do it anyway.

So here is a no fail recipe for French toast

For four servings.

4 eggs

1c milk

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Cooking spray

8 slices white bread, cheap and slightly stale is better

Break the eggs into a bowl.  Remove all the excess egg shell before continuing. Whisk slightly.  Add the milk and vanilla.  Whisk until the mixture is slightly frothy.  Dip each piece of bread into the egg mixture, coating both sides but do not soak.  If you over soak the bread, it will fall apart.

Place each slice in a preheated frying pay, sprayed with cooking spray.  Over medium heat, cook each slice until the bread is browned and dry, turning at least once. Use a spatula. If you turn more, no big deal.  If it breaks, you have now made French toast fingers.  If it is not quite done, put it back over the heat for a couple of minutes but turn the heat down.  If the pan starts to smoke, reduce the heat.  If there is nothing to cook, remove the pan from the heat.  You may need to clean the pan between slices, depending on the mess you made.

If you spill the bread or egg mixture onto the burner, it will burn.  You cannot clean it until the surfaces cool. Just turn on the vent fan and crack a window.

When your French Toast is ready, pour a liberal amount of maple syrup (imitation) over top after you put the toast on the plate.  No you cannot eat this directly from the pan.  Don't add extra vanilla, it won't taste better.  Cinnamon would be a nice addition.  Yes your Mom/grandmother has a better recipe but then they didn't teach it to you so you have to eat your own cooking.  Use a fork and clean up after yourself.

Actually each child made a pretty possible slice of French Toast and the recipe is a keeper.

This week, measurement lessons and from scratch Mac and cheese.