Front Yard Raspberry French Toast

I don't have too many breakfast dishes on The Good Food Muse - not because I don't eat breakfast but because I'm usually in too big a hurry to document it, and my breakfasts tend to be pretty boring: eggs and toast, or more recently berries and yogurt and flax seed..... I have Monday's off work, so this morning Stanley and I decided to actually make something somewhat exciting......

Our front yard is a complete and utter mess. We're renting and we have to move out in August, so with all my other gardening priorities I've never had the energy required to tame the front yard. Somehow in the midst of it all there are these amazing raspberry bushes. I didn't have a lot of hope for them since they're really crowded in, and the yard is heavily shaded. Lo and behold, they are producing like crazy! We've had to pick every day just to keep up with them!

The one drawback to picking these beauties is that you have to be prepared to lose about a pint of blood to the mosquitos. They have been especially bad the last few days. Stanley and I both went out this morning to pick - we managed to get most of them before we were overcome by the bugs. It was a little painful, but well worth it! I'm glad there were two of us. I think if I'd had to do it myself I would have given up sooner.

French toast was the breakfast of choice, and I decided to make a syrup/sauce out of the raspberries and a few strawberries that I had purchased at the farmer's market on Saturday. Aren't they beautiful?

I put them in a saucepan, added some sugar, cinnamon, and a tiny bit of salt (a subtle but necessary addition to anything sweet), and let it cook on low.

In no time, the raspberries broke down and turned into a delicious sweet/tart berry sauce.


The french toast was extremely basic: Eggs, milk, cinnamon, and a touch of nutmeg ... I would have added vanilla, but I didn't have any, so I kept it simple.

Beautiful! I garnished with basil, which I ate with the French Toast. It seemed weird, but I didn't have any mint around, and I the flavor actually worked pretty well with the berry sauce. Who knew?

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Simple French Toast with Raspberry Sauce

For the Sauce:
2 cups raspberries
1/2 cup strawberries
1/4 cup sugar (or more to taste)
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt

For the French Toast:
6 slices of good bread, whichever kind you like
5 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Mint or Basil leaves for garnish

Place all the ingredients for the sauce into a saucepan and simmer over low heat until berries have broken down. Heat butter for French Toast in a frying pan. combine eggs, milk, and cinnamon, and mix well. Dip each piece of bread into the egg mixture and then cook in the pan, flipping once so each side is well cooked. Place three pieces of French Toast onto each plate, spoon sauce over top, and garnish with mint or basil leaves.

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