Dear Everybody Who is Obsessed With Blue Apron, Green Chef, Hello Fresh, and The Like

I get it, okay. I know we need convenience in our lives. I know we're all busy - I'm right there with you. I work full time, I volunteer, I have kids, a spouse, dogs - plenty of demands. You and me both, okay? We like getting everything delivered to our doors. Amazon Prime, Bark Box, Honest Company - it all just shows up on our door step and we never even have to leave the house or shop in public or anything! Amazing. But let's step back a minute and talk about what we're getting when we make our food decisions and what our community is getting as a result. 

First let's talk about freshness - I'm guessing you are really keen on fresh ingredients because that is something that these companies tout. Fresh and organic ingredients. I also love fresh and organic ingredients. But let me suggest to you that the freshest ingredients you can get are the ones that are grown very close by and aren't packaged and well travelled. Try shopping the farmers market or the many grocery stores that sell local produce and get something fresh and organic there. It will be fresher than something that's been shipped to you and it won't come with food miles or extra packaging. It will not have travelled a long journey from the farm to the distribution center to the packaging facility to the next distribution center, etc. etc. etc. There is a lot of energy input for a journey like that so your delivery comes with kind of an outsized carbon footprint. Not unlike when I was a teenager and my feet grew faster than the rest of me: normal sized kid - GIANT feet! Meal delivery services mean a normal sized stash of ingredients - HUGE carbon footprint! 

Each time we buy food - and we buy food pretty often, don't we? Three meals a day, snacks, you, me, our families - lots of mouths to feed and lots of meals to make. Each time we buy food we are supporting someone. Think about who you support. A local, sustainable farmer? Or a large corporation? Or a company that supports organic farmers? There are a lot of decisions to make and we make them everyday. Sometimes we need to make decisions based on convenience. But whenever we can, let's make decisions that support our community.

Please join me in looking for ways to support local, organic, hard working, small farmers in our region when you make at least some of your food decisions. Your food will be fresher and your money will stay in Kansas City. By the way - you know about the local multiplier effect, right? For every $1 you spend at a national chain, only 15 cents is invested locally; but for every $1 you spend locally, 45 cents gets reinvested locally! Think about how much better our home town would be if each of us chose to spend just a few more of our dollars supporting local farmers. 

Thanks for your time!

Love,

Emily

PS: IF you want to join a Community Supported Agriculture program, call me - helping people find the right CSA is one of my favorite past times!

Complex Choices

“The more we know about our food system the more we are called into complex choices.” 

- Barbara Kingsolver

Wow! What a great experience and a fascinating conversation. I was so honored to be included in the discussion on the environmental impact of our food choices today on KCUR’s Central Standard. I learned a lot from the other guests, Tim Crews of the Land Institute and Mykel Taylor from KSU, and I appreciate the way that their specific perspective on agriculture really enriched my own take on things.

It is so true that we face very complex choices as Barbara Kingsolver says. And isn’t it fascinating that choosing what food we eat - which is such a personal decision - necessarily involves so many other people? But I hope that as individual consumers we can find a way to do a little bit at a time - to not bite off more than we can chew, if you will (pun intended). As we pay close attention to what kind of negative impact our choices have on the environment, I think we can also look for ways to have a positive impact on the world around us and on our KC community. Buying from local farmers means choosing to support the people who are taking good care of the soil and the land in and around KC. You can also keep more food dollars in our community rather than sending them to far-off companies and marketers and other entities. These are positive environmental and economic impacts.

As Mykel Taylor suggested - there may not be just one thing that will solve our problems. There might be a variety of solutions to address our great strain on the earth. I'm glad to know that there are groups that are laser focused on finding solutions for the parts of the system that they can impact. And I hope that the KC Food Circle can inspire folks to focus on what they can impact most directly - which is - what's on your plate.

Or bowl as the case may be. And speaking of which, here's my bok choi soup! 

BOK CHOI SOUP

I posted it once before but when I made it again last night I included lemongrass, which was a very nice touch. I also like to add a fresh garnish along with my sriracha. At lunch today I had scallions - tonight when I eat this soup again for dinner (because it's just that good) I'll add some very finely chopped radishes. I made a big batch of it last night since last night was CSA pick up night so I have plenty of soup to keep me going.

Baby Bok Choy and Garlic Soup

from 30 Bucks a Week

Ingredients:

7 c veggie broth

4-5 cloves garlic, crushed

1 piece of ginger, peeled

*a stalk or two of lemongrass! Hard outer leaves removed and just chopped into a few long pieces - remove before eating the soup.

handful of brown rice (between 1/4-1/2 cup; PS this is a great recipe to use up leftover rice)

1 kohlrabi or turnip, peeled and chopped
1 lb bok choy, trimmed and chopped
salt to tast
sriracha or other hot sauce, to taste
1-2 eggs

garnish with fresh scallions and or radish and or mint

Instructions:
Boil the vegetable stock and add the crushed garlic and ginger and lemongrass in a big pot. Let that simmer over low heat for about 5 minutes.
Add the rice and kohlrabi (or turnip); cover. Simmer for 20 minutes (unless rice was previously cooked.)
Add more broth if you need it and add the bok choy. Taste and season with salt and sriracha.
Cover and let the bok choy cook down - should only be 5 minutes or so.
Ladle a small portion of the broth out into a bowl and add the egg(s). Stir vigorously with a fork and then pour it all back into the pot. Give the soup a good stir and serve.

Chez Panisse

I don't really have a bucket list, per se, but if I did, eating at Chez Panisse would have been on it. I can't even remember when I first heard of Alice Waters or her trend-setting approach to food. But once I read the book Alice Waters and Chez Paniesse: The Romantic, Impractical, Often Eccentric, Ultimately Brilliant Making of a Food Revolution, by Thomas McNamee I knew I had to come. So when we started planning a trip to San Francisco, I started planning a jaunt over to Berkeley.

We opted to go just a few of us adults to Chez Panisse rather than all 9 members of our traveling party (including small children who I'm sure would have left a lot of crumbs to be scraped up by the crumb scraper).

It ended up being a lovely outing for me, my mom, and Tyler. We ubered over the Bay Bridge, saw a tiny bit of actual fog (finally!), and arrived right on time at the unassuming restaurant where we were greeted by a peace sign fashioned out of innumerable heads of garlic.

We ate in the café upstairs instead of the restaurant downstairs which is a prix fixe menu. In the cafe we were able to order a la carte which meant a chance to sample a variety of options.

What struck me about the entire dining experience - the food, the wait staff and host, the decor and music and even the wallpaper - was how simple and unassuming it is. Very straightforward and clean, without gimmick or frills, without complication or distraction. Very plain. Refined, I suppose. But also delicious (the food) and inviting (the ambiance).

first course
chilled beet soup with yogurt, chives, and dill
fattoush: tomato, purslane, cucumber with mint and flat bread

second course
pizza with wild nettles and sheep's milk ricotta
grilled eggplant with garlic cream, Provençal tomato, stuffed squash blossom with tapenade, and mesclun salad
hand-cut green noodles with Elliot Ranch lamb ragu, marjoram, hot pepper, and Parmesan

third course
blackberry sherbet with Zee Lady peaches and an ossi die morti
summer berry shortcake with mascarpone
Ruby Grand nectarine galette with vanilla ice cream

Radish Salsa

Michael Pollan would have us believe that we are a nation more obsessed with cooking shows than with cooking. And I think he's right to some degree. But I'm proud to report that my hours and hours and hours of watching Chopped is not for naught because it is on that show that I first heard about Radish Salsa.

Radish Salsa!

I jotted that down in my mental notes back in the winter when I was watching that episode. Now that radishes have been abundant and I've had my fill of my all time favorite Radish Sandwich, I decided to try this salsa at last.

I googled it and used the first recipe I found because it was a Mark Bittman one, so I thought it was reliable. Also, It was 6:00 when I was googling and I and my children were hungry so I wasn't about to go researching a bunch of radish salsa recipes and variations. Ain't nobody got time for that.

Mark Bittman's is nice and simple and makes a large portion - I made a much smaller portion, went easy on the crushed chiles in the hopes that the girls would eat it and wouldn't find it too spicy (ps: they did NOT eat it but Julia did tell me, unprompted, that she thought it was beautiful).

This salsa was the perfect high pitch accompaniment to go with the low tones of the Golden Summer Squash soup I made for dinner into which I added beans and lots of smoked salt. The soup was earthy, the salsa was bright. It was such a delicious combination that all my exclamations and exaltations while I was eating it convinced Julia to try the soup, even though she had initially refused it. And even though she never did try the salsa, she happily ate two full helpings of soup. I credit the salsa for that.


RADISH SALSA
from Mark Bittman

Radish Salsa

Makes: About 2 cups

Time: 30 minutes

Radishes are a classic salsa ingredient in Mexico, and the technique—mixing a vegetable (or fruit) with onion, an acid, chiles, and fresh herbs—is downright common. 

2 cups chopped radishes, like daikon, red, or a combination (about 1 pound)

1/2 English cucumber, peeled and diced

1/2 small red onion, chopped

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 teaspoon minced garlic

1 tablespoon minced fresh chile (like jalapeño or Thai), or to taste, or hot red pepper flakes or cayenne to taste

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice, or more to taste

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put all the ingredients in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly.

2. Taste and adjust the seasoning, adding more chile, lemon, or salt as needed. Serve immediately or cover and refrigerate for up to a day.

Getting Ready for Urban Grown

I'm really looking forward to the Urban Grown tour this summer! The girls and I went two years ago and we had such a nice time. The first time I went was 2009, back before Cultivate KC was even called Cultivate KC! Now the organization is celebrating their 10 year anniversary, and I was asked to write a piece for their Urban Grown newsletter that went out in March. Here it is...

Looking Back, Looking Forward: Ten Year of Local Food 
By Emily Akins, Kansas City Food Circle.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED HERE. 

This year will be my 10th season with my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, which was my first step down a long and winding path of amazing people, delicious local and organic food, and incredible connections.

Along that path I found out about the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, which was renamed Cultivate Kansas City in 2011. I signed up to take a class at Whole Foods, taught in part by Katherine Kelly, co-founder of Cultivate Kansas City, which included a farm tour of what is now called the Gibbs Road Farm. By then I had already begun working as a volunteer for the KC Food Circle, a non-profit that connects eaters with local, organic, and free-range farmers and was beginning to find my way around the great resources available in Kansas City. And I had already learned to appreciate where my food comes from.

When I heard about KCCUA’s Urban Farms and Gardens Tour I decided to sign up to help. It was winter. The days were short and the vegetable crispers in my fridge were empty, but I began meeting regularly with the amazing volunteers who were planning and preparing the 2009 Urban Farms and Gardens Tour. Before I knew it, it was a hot summer day, the growing season was in full swing, and I was driving around from farm to farm helping to keep the tour running smoothly. I was also enjoying my opportunity to learn about urban agriculture. I went to small farms, large farms, urban farms and backyard farms. Each one provided a wealth of food and information.

I wasn’t the only one who responded so positively to the tour. It has grown each year – as I think much of the local food movement has in Kansas City. With the KC Food Circle, we’ve seen a steady increase of farmers and eaters who want to become part of our organization, and great support from our volunteers and our community partners like Cultivate Kansas City.

I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed food so much in the years since my first season. And I inadvertently became much healthier. I hadn’t set out to eat more whole foods, but buying directly from our local farmers encouraged me to do so. I think this makes my family and me healthier but I also think it makes our community healthier.

This is the beauty of food grown so close to home -- I know the people who grow my food. They have taught me how to store, prepare, and preserve all the delicious produce that comes to me fresh from their farm every week. I can even visit the farms and see with my own eyes where my food comes from. Best of all they have provided me with confidence. I know that their sustainable farming practices both enrich the earth and make for delicious, fresh produce. And I know that each crop and each farmer and each urban farm is enabling Kansas City to grow stronger every year.

I am excited to see the growth that has already happened in Kansas City and I am even more excited to see where Kansas City will be in the next 10 years as more farmers farm, more eaters eat, and as the efforts of Cultivate Kansas City continue to fill our urban core full of delicious food.

###

Here are some of my favorite pics from the Urban Grown Tour in 2013. All the pics are HERE.

Stinging Nettle

"Stinging Nettle" - such an "Eye of Newt" kind of name

This is stinging nettle. It's a wild edible, I suppose, although you can't eat it when you find it in the wild. I didn't actually find it in the wild myself - I found it at the Eat Local and Organic Expo. It was my farmers who found it growing wild on their farm. I bought it out of curiosity.

It's stings your skin when you touch it (hence the name) but it's safe to eat if you cook it first. ("Really?" I asked the farmer. "Really?" Sergio asked me when I told him. "Really?" You might be asking yourself.) Really it is.

I followed this recipe which instructs you to steam it for 20 mins, which I did and which takes away the sting. This site also says that nettle puts kale and spinach to shame. ("Really?" I wondered, having long since been convinced that kale is the "valedictorian of vegetables.")

Low and behold it is rich in antioxidants. I wonder, are all those nutrients cancelled out if I cram my stinging nettle into a hot mess of eggs and cheese? Even if it's local/organic/free-range eggs and cheese? Maybe. Maybe not. But it tasted good. The recipe worked almost perfectly apart from the fact that I don't know how to make an omelette; any shortcomings of this dish were due entirely to my ineptitude. The stinging nettle was great. Spinachy-tasting in the omelette, though it gave off the most complex minty-potato-ish kind of smell while it steamed.

I wondered why it is I've made it this far in life and haven't learned how to make an omelette. I guess it's because I don't like them all that well.

But I liked this one for sure.

Looking forward to the leftovers tomorrow.

Stinging Nettle Omelete (or Omelette?) 

"Looking back, looking forward: Ten years of local food"

This article appeared in Cultivate KC's newsletter, Urban Grown, in March, 2015 in anticipation of their 10th anniversary. Happy Anniversary, Cultivate! 

Looking back, looking forward: Ten years of local food

By Emily Akins, Kansas City Food Circle

This year will be my 10th season with my Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm, which was my first step down a long and winding path of amazing people, delicious local and organic food, and incredible connections.

Along that path I found out about the Kansas City Center for Urban Agriculture, which was renamed Cultivate Kansas City in 2011. I signed up to take a class at Whole Foods, taught in part by Katherine Kelly, co-founder of Cultivate Kansas City, which included a farm tour of what is now called the Gibbs Road Farm. By then I had already begun working as a volunteer for the KC Food Circle, a non-profit that connects eaters with local, organic, and free-range farmers and was beginning to find my way around the great resources available in Kansas City. And I had already learned to appreciate where my food comes from.

When I heard about KCCUA’s Urban Farms and Gardens Tour I decided to sign up to help. It was winter.

The days were short and the vegetable crispers in my fridge were empty, but I began meeting regularly with the amazing volunteers who were planning and preparing the 2009 Urban Farms and Gardens Tour. Before I knew it, it was a hot summer day, the growing season was in full swing, and I was driving around from farm to farm helping to keep the tour running smoothly. I was also enjoying my opportunity to learn about urban agriculture. I went to small farms, large farms, urban farms and backyard farms. Each one provided a wealth of food and information.

I wasn’t the only one who responded so positively to the tour. It has grown each year – as I think much of the local food movement has in Kansas City. With the KC Food Circle, we’ve seen a steady increase of farmers and eaters who want to become part of our organization, and great support from our volunteers and our community partners like Cultivate Kansas City.

I’ve learned a lot and enjoyed food so much in the years since my first season. And I inadvertently became much healthier. I hadn’t set out to eat more whole foods, but buying directly from our local farmers encouraged me to do so. I think this makes my family and me healthier but I also think it makes our community healthier.

This is the beauty of food grown so close to home -- I know the people who grow my food. They have taught me how to store, prepare, and preserve all the delicious produce that comes to me fresh from their farm every week. I can even visit the farms and see with my own eyes where my food comes from. Best of all they have provided me with confidence. I know that their sustainable farming practices both enrich the earth and make for delicious, fresh produce. And I know that each crop and each farmer and each urban farm is enabling Kansas City to grow stronger every year.

I am excited to see the growth that has already happened in Kansas City and I am even more excited to see where Kansas City will be in the next 10 years as more farmers farm, more eaters eat, and as the efforts of Cultivate Kansas City continue to fill our urban core full of delicious food. 

Watermelon Popsicles - a very short "recipe"

Watermelon Popsicles

Watermelon Popsicles - a very short "recipe"

Ingredients
watermelon
sugar (optional)
basil, chopped (optional)

Directions
1. Chop the watermelon; remove the seeds.
2. Blend in the Vita-mix (or blender).
3. Add sugar and/or basil if desired.
4. Pour watermelon water into some sort of popsicle maker thingy. If you are a nursing mom, consider utilizing the empty breast milk storage containers that are collecting in your cabinet. They hold 2.5 ounces and are skinny.
5. Add appropriate popsicle sticks if you have them. Or, if you are nursing mom who didn't plan this ahead very well but who hoards, you can rummage through your catch-all drawer and unearth some plastic wear from previous take-out orders. If you can find 6 plastic forks or spoons, make 6 popsicles.
6. Place onto a plate and into the freezer.
7. Wait until a super hot day or a day when your toddler needs a distraction or - ideally - both! To remove popsicles from breast milk storage containers, dip them in a glass of hot water.
8. Have camera ready.

Note to self. Buy popsicle sticks so you don't have to use forks which become kind of hazardous as the popsicle melts. Duh. 

Another note to self: take children outside and strip them naked before giving them a popsicle. Or be prepared to clean. A lot. 

Julia takes the first bite. 

Sharing with her sister. 

Neither of them capable of waiting their turn, they opt to share simultaneously. 

Urban Grown Farms and Gardens Tour - 2013

Switzer Neighborhood Farm

This year marks the 5th biennial urban farms and gardens tour, hosted by Cultivate KC, and the urban growth (pun intended) this city has seen is nothing short of amazing. In 2005 when the tour began, there were 6 farms on the tour and 300 people who attended the whole tour. Every tour since has seen an exponential increase in both attendees and farm sites on the tour. This event now boasts 60 sites and has spanned to cover two days; the small number 300 is more likely to describe the number of attendees in one day at one farm. By now the tour has reached the status of The Largest Urban Farm Tour in the nation. 

All of which means, this city has a lot of food growing in a lot of unexpected and important places. 

chard on the westside

Urban farming - popular enough now to merit its own magazine - is more than just the trendy thing to do. This movement goes beyond the offbeat juxtapositions: the dilapidated buildings next to lush raised beds of kale, rusted art and radishes, municipal chickens and downtown ducks. This is about growing food in precisely the spots where people are everyday. This is about revitalizing wasted land and making it livable, beautiful, and productive. This is about knowing where your food comes from and seeing it for yourself, whether you're a little kid, a grown woman, an old man. For some of these sites, this is about serving the underserved, about communities pulling together to take care of themselves, and about volunteers working to feed others. Whether a site is an oasis in a food desert or growing the freshest food right outside the restaurant kitchen, this tour is about "cultivating change." 

When I volunteered four years ago, I hurried all over town to help and see as much as I could in one day, but I could only make it to 5 farm sites. And that was before I had kids. So this year I was pretty proud when - over the course of 2 days, while Sergio was unavailable, with both girls in tow, stopping for potty breaks and diaper changes and breastfeeding - I made it to 5 farms again! Of course, that leaves 55 farms I wanted to see but couldn't. I'm not complaining, though. Too many urban farms and gardens is a great problem to have.

The Five Sites I Saw on My Tour

Hoop Dog Studio

The first stop on my tour was Hoop Dog Studio on Troost. Almost every morning we take Troost to take Julia to school, so I had noticed this place with its turquoise doors, its ransom-note like "Obama" made of old neon sign letters, its particular tall bird on the side of the building. But I never would have imagined that inside is an intricate maze of hydroponics, livestock, vegetables, flowers, and discarded materials turned into art. While you may need to steer your toddler clear of the rusted nails emerging from the rail road ties or the shards of (intentional) broken pottery, you will come away in awe of the majestic mess of growth and life - vegetables, fish and flowers - coming out of urban castoffs - rebar, upturned muffin tins, oxytetracyclinehydrochloride barrels. Maybe that "skelebird" on the side of the building is supposed to be a phoenix. 

Hoop Dog Studio on Troost 

Julia and Skelebird

Crown Garden

In the summer of 2010, I was an insignificant member of a small team of people helping to make plans to start an urban garden - to be maintained by volunteers at Hallmark - at the Ronald McDonald house right across the street. That summer the idea was just a seed. I went off to have a couple of babies over the next two years and then next thing I know - voila! The garden is going so strong that they are on the Urban Grown tour. There are some incredible master gardeners and volunteers at Hallmark who have contributed their time to this farm's success. And all the produce grown (organically, by the way) in the Crown Garden goes to the families and patients staying at the Ronald McDonald house. Which seems to me like such a really nice thing to do for people you don't even know.

Hallmark's Crown Garden

Julia's and my favorite. 

Beanstalk Children's Garden (at KCCG)

The Beanstalk Garden has a little bit of everything - several varieties of fruits, lots of vegetables, flowers, herbs and a fountain. I'm not sure if the water feature is meant to be toddler entertainment, but it sure was for us after a long hot day of touring. Jasper and Julia went wild with the water while we sat under the grapevines and fed the babies and imagined what we might grow in our own gardens even though we are not the skilled master gardeners who run these places - nevermind that. Seeing it all blossoming and blooming and making fruit makes you think - surely I could do this, too! And the truth is, with the help of KC Community Gardens, you probably could!

Beanstalk Children's Garden - and fountain

Pretty please with a cherry on top?

Herb'n Gardener
I wanted to stop in at Lew Edmister's place because Julia and I see Lew every Friday night at Badseed (for that same reason, I wanted to go to Urbavore, too, we just couldn't get there). I thought it'd be fun to see what he's growing so maybe Julia can put two and two together when she sees him at market. Lew also makes bread and - for that matter - made his own bread oven! "Fire!" said Julia, when she saw Lew checking the flames inside. While Lew got his dough ready for a demo, Julia and I ate mustard greens from the field and tried to keep Clara from eating the mulch. Lew brought us some nasturtiums to eat; Julia would have none of it, though she liked eating the little yellow mustard green flowers.

Clara at Herb'n Gardener 

Julia and the mustard greens

Switzer Neighborhood Farm
From Lew's I thought I'd head to the Westside Local to see some vertical gardening by Anti-Hero Landscaping, but I got sidetracked on the way when I passed what looks like a giant hole in the ground full of an urban farm. Chickens, ducks, geese, bees and butterflies; vegetables, flowers, and herbs. This place was literally a dumping ground for a long time before, 3 years ago, some folks in the Westside Community Action Network came along to clean it up. It's amazing and lush and complex and gritty and the kale in that raised bed was the heartiest I've seen. (And I have seen a lot of kale.) Julia loved the livestock and watched with rapt attention as the chickens responded to our "cock-a-doodle-doos!" and "kiki-ri-kees!" This neighborhood has really embraced this bit of blight and brought it back to life.

Switzer Neighborhood Farm
in the shadow of the abandoned Switzer school

Julia and the chickens

Strawberry Bread Pudding

berries

If you're anything like me, you may find yourself with a good chunk of leftover Italian bread and an overage of fresh, local, organic strawberries (because you can never buy just one quart since one quart is what you eat on the way home from the market and you'll need a lot more than that once you get home). And in this fortuitous moment, you may think to yourself, "Is there such a thing as strawberry bread pudding?"

You may do a Google search and find out that, Yes, there IS such a thing! And you may sort through a lot of recipes before finding THIS ONE and emailing to your husband one morning suggesting it for dessert that night. And you may even get home at the end of the day and offer to make that Strawberry Bread Pudding only to discover that he has already done it! 

And then you may find out that not only is there such a thing as Strawberry Bread Pudding, but it is delightful. 

The next morning your husband may have the brilliant idea to slice the leftover bread pudding and fry it a little like a french toast or something. And then you may justify eating Strawberry Bread Pudding for both dessert AND breakfast. And you may be delighted yet again. 

If you're anything like me, that is.

Strawberry Bread Pudding
from the kitchen of One Perfect Bite, inspired by the Daily Loaf 
click here for full details and a recipe for caramel sauce
Ingredients:
4 eggs
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup white granulated sugar
1/4 cup golden brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces crusty stale bread, torn or cut in bite-size pieces
2 cups fresh or frozen (thawed) strawberries, sliced

Directions:
1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease an 8 x 8 x-2-inch pan. Set aside.
2) Combine eggs, milk, sugar (white and brown, vanilla extract, spices and salt in a small bowl. Whisk until blended.
3) Place bread pieces into a large bowl. Pour milk mixture over bread and toss to combine. Let sit for 15 minutes to allow milk to be absorbed into bread.
4) Fold in strawberries and pour mixture into baking dish.
5) Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, or until raised and puffy. Insert a toothpick into center and if it comes out fairly clean, it’s done. Let cool for a few minutes before serving. Yield: 8 to 10 servings.


The French Toast Treatment for Breakfast

Ingredients:
leftover Strawberry Bread Pudding
butter

Directions:
Slice the pudding into 1-inch or 1 1/2-inch slices.
Heat butter in pan.
Fry the pudding slices (that's a weird phrase) until golden.
Ignore the fact that you just made something unhealthy even unhealthier.
Enjoy!