French Toast Casserole

Mr. Chevy

With the introduction of our newest family member, a little rescue pup named Chevy, finding time to make breakfast beyond cereal or toast are a thing of the past for the time being.  Meals that are quick and ready to go are just what I need since Chevy has all kinds of energy after resting all night.  Prior to our vegan gluten free transformation, we used to make a french toast bake with fruit and I had been thinking about trying a version that would work for our family.  So with this in mind, and wanting to make a real breakfast again, I set out in search of a comparable recipe.  My search wasn't turning much up that looked interesting and I was beginning to think another boring breakfast was on the horizon, but wait, here's an intriguing site called Kitchen Grrrls.  With hope, I clicked the link and viola, there is was, the recipe I was searching for.  My mouth started watering looking at their pictures and reading the recipe so I headed to the kitchen at 10:00pm to assemble the next morning's wonderfulness.  With a few tweaks of ingredients to fit my families needs, I put breakfast together in no time.  I even pre-washed the blueberries and mixed all the dry ingredients for the topping the night before, I'm not messing around with having to take my eyes off a 3 month old potty training chew happy puppy in the morning.

Chevy thinking he's
 tackling Mya

One of the tweaks I made was to use gluten free bread by Ener-G.  This is a firmer bread that I thought might hold up better since it needs to soak up lots of liquids.  I really wasn't sure how this would turn out using the GF bread, but with my and Kitchen Grrrls fingers crossed, I gave it a try.  The next morning, I whisked some water with the dry topping ingredients that were ready and waiting for me from the night before, spooned it on top and popped the entire casserole in the pre-heated oven.  Since now all I had to do was wait for the oven to do the work, I grabbed my cup of coffee and was entertained by Chevy and Mya playing for the next hour.

It was like a scene from a fairy tale, as the timer beeped, my beautiful princesses awoke, quite possibly from the amazing smells wafting from the kitchen.  It looked just as I hoped.  As much as it was torturing us, I allowed it to cool for about 15 minutes.  With the french toast finally on our plates, we drizzled some pure maple syrup on top, took our first bites and we were not disappointed!  It was so good, there was not a bite left on our plates.  I thoroughly enjoyed the recipe, but next time I might switch out the ground flax for ground chia seed just to see how it turns out, what can I say, I like to experiment!

French Toast Casserole

Ingredients:

1 loaf GF bread of choice, should have 12 pieces

3 c. nondairy milk

1/3 c. ground flax seed

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 Tbsp. agave

1 Tbsp. pure vanilla extract

pinch of Himalayan pink salt

Middle layer:

1 banana, sliced thin

1/3 c. coconut sugar

1/3 c. chopped pecans (pumpkin seeds would work if you have a nut allergy)

2 Tbsp. quick cooking GF oats

1/4 tsp. cinnamon

2 Tbsp. pure water

Topping:

2/3 c. coconut sugar

2/3 c. chopped pecans (again, pumpkin seeds if needed)

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/4 c. quick cooking GF oats

1/4 c. pure water

20-40 organic blueberries (we like blueberries so we used 40)

Directions:
1.  Spray casserole dish and lay six pieces of bread in dish.
2.  Mix milk, flax, cinnamon, agave, vanilla and salt, set aside.
3.  Mix middle layer ingredients but not the banana.  Spoon a little bit of mixture on each piece of bread, then place banana pieces on top.
4.  Place the other six slices of bread on the middle mixture.
5.  Gently pour milk mixture over entire dish, making sure all pieces of bread got wet.  Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
6.  Wash and dry blueberries, place in closed container.
7.  Mix all dry topping ingredients, do not add water until morning.  Place in closed container.
8.  Go to bed :)
9.  In the morning, preheat oven to 350, add water to dry topping ingredients, spoon mixture on top of prepared bread, covering each top piece, sprinkle blueberries over top.
10.  Place in oven for 1 hour, you may need an extra 10 minutes depending on the bread used, check to
make sure the topping isn't burning.  Once done, remove from oven and allow casserole to sit 10-15 minutes.
11.  Serve with some warmed pure maple syrup and enjoy!

*Store left overs (if there are any) in foil in the fridge, place back in oven to reheat.