What-What?! Week of January 26th

Friday, my husband decided to start a blog, The Wizard's Rambles.  You'll find the picture of Saffron's finished Battlemech, which I posted the in-process shot of on Art Thursday.  He just started it, so it's pretty basic right now.

Food and Cooking:  Silicone Muffin Cups Review

For Christmas, I was given two different sets of silicone muffin cups, and having had used them for about a month now, I thought a review was in order.

I have to say, these are so great!  I like that I can pick up each cup individually and fill it, bringing the cup to the batter, rather than the other way around (I always make a mess getting the batter into the cups).  The muffins bake up well in the cups, and the cups themselves store easily in one of my kitchen drawers.  And while Ruffles should have ridges, silicone muffin cups should not; the little ridges on the side of each cup do make them difficult to clean.  I use paper cups when I make muffins or cupcakes in these, which is somewhat annoying, but I was using them with the conventional muffin pan anyway.

To avoid the cleaning issue, I suggest either using paper cups like I do, or buying ones that have fewer or no ridges.  The best I could find on Amazon were these ones made by Freshware, as seen above.

Cooking:  Oven French Toast with Creamy Peach Filling

This is a great breakfast or dinner.  Make it the night before for breakfast, or the morning of for dinner.  The filling and cutting up the bread can be made a day or two ahead of time, to make assembly quick.

Ingredients

Filling:

• 2 small cans Peaches
• 8 ounces Cream Cheese, softened
• 3 tablespoons Sugar (granulated or brown)

French toast:

• 1 loaf French Bread, cut into cubes
• 8 Eggs
• 1/2 cup Milk
• 1 tablespoon Vanilla
• Dash of Salt
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Butter or cooking spray

Drain the canned peaches, reserving 1/4 cup of the liquid.  Mix peaches, cream cheese, sugar together, mashing the peaches as you go.  If it seems too thick, add some of the reserved peach syrup.  Set aside.

Grease a 9 x 13 pan.  Do NOT forget this step.  It doesn't matter what you grease it with, be it butter, cooking spray, or the tears of your enemies, but grease it.  If you forget, you will be stuck at the kitchen sink for hours, wondering where your life went so wrong.

Anyway.

Beat eggs, milk, vanilla, and spices until well mixed.
Put half the French bread cubes into the pan, top with the filling, then the other half of the bread cubes.  Pour the egg mixture evenly over the pan.  Cover with plastic wrap, then put in the fridge for 8 hours or overnight.

When ready to cook, pull the pan out of the fridge and set the oven to 350 degrees.  Cover with foil, bake 45 minutes, uncovering for the last 15 minutes.  Enjoy!