Breakfast (and a winner) for dinner

French toast sticks with berry dipping sauce

So lately dinner successes have been few and far between. Either I spend a lot of time and energy cooking something no one likes (see yesterday's post) or I'm tired and throw together some kid food and call it a day. Literally, all week I've felt like eating a bowl of cereal for dinner. I don't know if I'm a little creatively spent or need some extra sleep or a little from column A and B. Anyway, last night I found myself pushing chicken nuggets (frozen, gasp!) on the kids (that for some reason they weren't interested in) and just felt like I was saying "I know you already ate all of your apples, but finish your processed junk meat or no sugar as a reward."

Obviously that's not what I said, but I may as well have. I felt like I was yet again struggling with dinner - this time a "kid food" and they weren't even eating. So, I decided that tonight things were going to be different. Instead of forcing an uber-healthy, but not kid friendly dinner or making something I didn't feel great about  - I was going to make something healthy that I knew the kids would love. Enter breakfast for dinner!

Where this recipe came from
My super sister-in-law (I actually have two super sister-in-law's...soon to be three) Jen gave me this great cookbook for Christmas...Williams Sonoma cooking with kids (or something to that effect). Bodie and I were looking through it the other day to come up with new things to make together and we came across french toast sandwiches that were cut into shapes with jelly in the middle. He got super excited, so I put this on the soon-to-make list. I didn't feel like bothering with the cookie cutters tonight, so I decided that I would take the elements (french toast and fruit) and make my own twist.

Making the recipe
This one was pretty fun to make. I decided to toast the french toast after I cooked it to give it more of a crunchy texture. It definitely helped make these more stick-like. For the sauce, I pretty much put all of the ingredients in a pot and let it cook. The consistency was slightly thinner than what I was hoping for. It was more drizzle-sauce like and less dipping sauce, but it still totally worked. I think I would cut back on the water next time or omit it all together.

The results
Ding ding ding...we have a winner!! Bodie actually said "this is my favorite dinner." I almost cried :) This was the first dinner in I don't know how long where I didn't have to tell the kids to eat...not once. I'm really feeling like next to my wedding day and the birth of my two children this was one of the best days of my life (just kidding...sort of!). The kids had fun eating it and it was a REAL dinner (or breakfast). YEAH!!

The recipe(s)
French toast sticks
6 slices of whole grain bread
3 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tsp honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
olive oil

Heat olive oil over medium heat. Whisk eggs, milk, honey, cinnamon and ginger in a medium-size bowl. Dip each slice of bread in egg mixture, turning. Cook over medium heat until browned and flip.

Cook on the other side until browned. Remove from pan and cool for a minute. Cut into strips (I cut each bread slice into 4 "sticks"). Put on a foil-lined backing sheet and put in the toaster oven or regular oven at 375 for 5-10 minutes.

Serve with the berry sauce.

Berry sauce
1 package (16 oz) of mixed frozen berries
1/2 cup water (if you want a thicker sauce, cut this in half or omit)
1/4 cup orange juice
2 tbsp honey
juice of a half lime or lemon (I used lime because I had it...but lemon would be great too).

Mix all ingredients in a small saucepan over med-high heat. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.

Use the immersion blender to process, or transfer to the blender and process until smooth.

I had a lot of berry sauce left over...I'm planning to mix with vanilla yogurt and some granola!!