Creamsicle icing

For the icing on our lemon filled Starlight cake, we made creamsicle icing!

We started with Betty Crocker's creamy vanilla frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- about 2 tablespoons milk

Except we used 4 tablespoons of juice from clementines instead of milk and added about 2 teaspoons of their grated peel.

Perfect Seasonal Breakfast

I served leftover pumpkin spice waffles from the other night, with my daughter's favorite almond sunset tea with (soy)milk and honey. And a clementine. Seems like a perfect seasonal breakfast. The tea seems to help my daughter's dry cough (even she remarks this is the case) and everything else just seems to hit the spot.

Bizarre little breakfast

I already have some multigrain bread (unbleached white, whole wheat and rye flour) rising... My daughter and husband had a special lunch out yesterday to commemorate the end of the semester and the end of "lunch with Daddy" days while Mommy is in class. My daughter ordered a white Sicilian with broccoli and sausage from Pizza Doro. We'll probably have that for lunch (and I'm thinking I'll let her have ice cream after, her kindergarten teacher will love me for that.)

For breakfast I served my daughter a clementine, some cashews and graham crackers. Not standard, but good stuff.

Fruity Baked French Toast

I can't find my recipe for baked French toast, but this won't stop me. I'm combining the vegan recipe for French toast, my imagination and my leftover homemade bread from Thanksgiving...

• 8 slices homemade white bread
• 8 slices homemade multigrain bread
• 4 large eggs
• 2/3 cup homemade applesauce
• 1 banana
• juice of 1 clementine
• 1 cup soymilk
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Okay, so the jury is out on whether this one will "work." In a bowl, I mixed: the eggs, applesauce, banana, juice, milk, honey and vanilla. I dipped the bread into the mix and layered it into my greased (with butter) 11x 7 casserole dish. Then I added the cinnamon and the nutmeg to the egg mix and poured over the bread. (I had two layers of bread.)

I'm baking and 350 and then I figure I'll broil it depending on how much of the liquid gets absorbed.

After 20 minutes at 350, most of the liquid absorbed, but it was still mushy, so I rearranged it a bit and increased heat to 420, for another 10 minutes...

As the pieces got crispy, I served with cream cheese and my mother-in-law's blueberry topping.

Now, if you'd rather try a recipe for vegan French toast, here you go (from Eileen Bresslin):

• 1 cup soy milk
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 slices stale bread
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon

Mix soy milk and orange juice, dip bread in mix lightly (do NOT let bread get soggy) sprinkle with cinnamon and fry in oiled skillet.