Quick and Easy Stuffed French Toast

 Ingredients:
-2 pieces of bread
-Cream cheese
-Jelly
-1 Egg
-1/4 C Milk (or part milk, part almond milk)
-1 tsp cinnamon
-1/2 tsp ginger
-Optional hint of nutmeg (I couldn't find my jar, so mine does not have it in there)

I have made actual stuffed french toast before, where you cut a slit in the side of a slice of some delicious thick artisan bread (like Vienna bread as it tend to have fewer air pockets) and fill it with all kinds of yummy stuffings (I used a cream cheese and key lime yogurt mix with grahams in it), and then batter it and fry it up and you get this huge delicious breakfast dessert that expands for hours after you eat it. 

Yea well, I am in grad school and I have become quite partial to using things I already have on hand.  I am not going to buy extra fancy loaves of bread if I already have a loaf of regular bread here.

And yes, I could make my own.  But I usually only make dough once a week or once every few weeks for pizza and some small other bread. 

So anyway, I was thinking about grilled cheese.  I love grilled cheese.  And it occurred to me that many people's version of stuffed french toast is a battered grilled cheese equivalent.  A delicious breakfast using things I already have? PERFECT.

So I spread some cream cheese and some homemade strawberry jelly that my mom and sister whipped up.  I beat the egg, milk, and spices together in a larger plastic container.
I smooshed (technical term) the sandwhich down to keep it together during battering and flipping.

There is also a good chance I smooshed it down because that is what I do with my bologna samiches...Yea that's right, I like bologna.  And HOT DOGS.  Don't hate.

Anyways, smooshed samich, dip it in the batter on both sides and butter a skillet on medium or slightly lower heat.  Think, typical toast setting.  Plop in your stuffed french toast and cook about 2-3 minutes on each side or until it is starting to brown.  What you see in the skillet is a little thing I like to call french toasting perfection.  That amount of brown is right on track for me.

Top it off with some REAL maple syrup because I am just as picky about syrup quality as I am on cheese, or use honey.  Believe it or not I will buy the Wal-Mart brand of honey.  Most likely though, if I tried some organic version from Whole Foods or similar, I would retract that statement.  Hence why I will not buy honey from an organic healthy high quality place. 

You could easily get two sandwiches out of this batter amount, and possibly a third.  So do not think that you have to up the batter every time you up the sandwich amount.  I had to pour some out, but unless you use egg beaters it is really difficult to measure out a part of an egg.

Other flavors that I would suggest:
-Peanut butter and banana on wheat.  Why have I stopped buying wheat bread? How did this happen? I may go back to wheat bread sometime.  I really used to enjoy it. I would top this particular flavor of stuffed french toast with honey.

-Nutella and mashed raspberries or raspberry jam.  Again, I am thinking on a wheat.  This would be fantastic.  I am getting hungry again just thinking about all this.

-Cream cheese and apple pie filling.  You may want to mash up the apples a little in order to make it more manageable. 

-Cream cheese and lemon curd for a lemon cream pie feel.  Maybe even some grahams crushed up.  Yummy.

-Nutella and Marshmellow fluff.  Also with grahams, could taste like smores! Hey, maybe dip the battered samich in the grahams and THEN cook.  That could be fun.

-Cream cheese and cinnamon, brown sugar mix.  Like a cinnamon roll, inside french toast.  Tasty.


Alright, now that I am hungry yet again, go make you some french toast samiches and if you try any of those other flavors let me know how they turn out.  The possibilities are ENDLESS.  This cream cheese and strawberry mix is a definite winner.

Happy crafting!

PS.  Eventually I am going to try to get to crafts again, other than just recipes.  My grad school work is keeping me much more on my toes this semester, but I have to cook and eat regardless.  In case you were wondering why the blog has turned into a temporary, mini food network.  Enjoy!