a special occasion breakfast

well, christmas came and went. and it was lovely. i hope it was perfect for you and your family. did you get everything you hoped for? did you love seeing the eyes of your loved ones light up as they opened your gifts? i know i did.

it's so nice to have such blessings in life.

well, i made a great breakfast for christmas day. something i found while browsing other blogs. delicious overnight blueberry french toast casserole. wow. it's something special! i did make a few slight changes to the recipe, so i'm telling you how i did it. feel free to check the original also!

you take a loaf of bread, like french or italian. something crusty. cut it into squares about 1 inch big. take a little more than half of the cuttings and spread into the bottom of a GREASED 13x9 pan. whoops. i forgot to grease mine. it doesn't change the cooking, it just makes it miserable to clean. layer on top of the bread some cream cheese. i used two bricks cut into pretty small chunks. i think it was a bit rich. i'd have used a little less. then layer a pint of blueberries. i have no idea how big a pint is, because my packages came labeled in liters. so, use *some* blueberries for this. top with the remainder of the bread.

then, in a bowl, whisk together 8 eggs and 2.5 cups of milk. sprinkle in some vanilla extract, nutmeg, cinnamon, and about 1/3-1/2 cup of syrup. when it's all mixed together, pour it over the bread mixture in the pan. i made sure to get the entire top of it damp, but i don't know how important that was.

i tried using a spoon to sort of press the bread down to make sure the liquid was all soaked up, but that didn't work well. so, i used my hands. it worked! it's messy, and i haven't decided if i like messy hands while i'm cooking.

do this all the night before. cover it with foil. in the morning, put the pan out to get room temperature-ish. warm your oven to 350. put the casserole in the oven with the foil on for 30 minutes, then remove the foil for another 30 minutes.

that's how i did it. the recipe i referred to above says to make a blueberry compote to go with it, and that would have definitely sealed the deal. i chose the lazy way out and we ate it without the compote. not bad at all, but missing it for sure. so, make the compote. or serve with maple syrup. or blueberry syrup, if you have that.