Night Before French Toast

When I was a kid, my mother started this tradition. I vaguely remembered that she got the idea from someone else, but I couldn't remember who. Then one day, a couple of years ago, I posted about the tradition on Facebook. 

A couple of extended family members saw the post and told me who it started with. It was my step-grandma Shirley. My mother picked it up from her. Turns out that it's branched out quite far now. I do the tradition. Shirley's granddaughters and granddaughters-in-law also do the tradition. My mother still does the tradition. It would not surprise me at all if Hannah carried it on someday.

This tradition is called Night Before French Toast.

Every Christmas Eve, my mother would make Night Before French Toast. You refrigerate it all assembled over night and put it in the oven the next morning. This dish works extremely well on Christmas morning. The whole idea is that you are not chained to the stove, but you can still serve a fancy and delicious breakfast.

Soon after I got married, my mother gave me the recipe. She typed it on this recipe card. I still have it.

I started making Night Before French Toast when I wasn't with my mother for Christmas. The first year was when I was expecting Jacob. In December of 1996, Jeremy and I had the sweetest little Christmas at home in Park Slope. 

I made the Night Before French Toast this Christmas. I also recommend it at other times. It's fantastic when you have people over for brunch. Jeremy and I once hosted his family along with relatives from California at our place one year, and I made two big batches. People loved it. The only person I've encountered that doesn't is Noah. I feel that he may come around to it someday.

I also find that it works really well when kids sleep over at our house. It's very special but it's almost no effort for me. It goes over really well and then I am perceived as the cool mom.

If you want a great New Year's day breakfast, make it and put it in the fridge before you go out on New Year's Eve. 

This is the basic recipe. Over the years I've adapted it. 

One of my secrets is that I substitute buttermilk for half of the milk in the recipe. I started doing this because Jeremy and I are crazy about buttermilk. I believe that the buttermilk makes it very custardy on the inside and crisp on the outside.

You can also vary the bread that you use. Lately, I've been making it with Challah bread. That is a natural for this recipe and it goes with it beautifully.

I've also used sourdough bread with Nite Before French Toast. I'm a big fan of the sweet/sour/savory combo. Hence the buttermilk and sourdough bread.

Other People's Blogs

Beautiful, practical and down to earth. Here are three useful blogs I love. They give me the advice I need in a lovely package. I couldn't ask for more.

Apartment Therapy

I'm raising a family in a small apartment.  This is the price we pay for living in NYC. I wouldn't trade my little dwelling for the world. I really like it here. That said, it can be trying.

God Bless Apartment Therapy. They've done a lot to singlehandedly make living is a teeny place seem cool - even desirable. There are absolutely brilliant ideas here for making the most of any space - big or small. Besides that, although the site is cleanly and beautifully designed, the photographs look like real places to live. The rooms featured are not over styled or inaccessible. They look like your cool friend's apartment.

We are planning an apartment renovation and this has been my bible. It would be a good fit for bigger project than ours (like a gut reno) or smaller (organizing your shoes).

Dinner: A Love Story 

The basic premise of this blog is to make eating dinner together as a family easy and enjoyable for busy parents. But that description is limiting, so I'll say a bit more.

This blog takes the everyday concept of kids, meals, parenting and running a household and elevates it. There's no sense of drudgery here. The photographs are homey and cozy while infused with sophistication. I would say the same things about the recipes. They really are easy, and they are easy to adapt to individual tastes. A lot of them take comfort food somewhere new, interesting and delicious.

And here's a little secret for people who don't have kids, people whose kids have flown the coop, or people who have one child who won't eat anything from this website either (ahem): check out this blog. The food is that good, the visuals are that lovely. This is not kiddie food. Make it for you and your adult friends.

They also have cookbooks that embody the same sensibilities.

Moomah: the Magazine

This blog is primarily focused on parents of young children. But I am here to say that as a mother of teens, I'm still finding it relevant and inspiring. Here's why.

To say this blog has an artistic sensibility is an understatement. You will find crafting projects, little kid fashion layouts, articles to read the little ones about animals - but it almost doesn't matter. The website is just incredibly beautiful. Check it out whether you have small kids or not. It's a visual feast.

The art projects, travel ideas and cooking inspiration are applicable to families with wee ones and teens, and dare I say some of it will draw in non-parents too.

This blog does not take itself too seriously. Nor is it overly precious. That said, I have been known to enjoy the extremely precious blogs too. They're a guilty pleasure.

The blog is constantly evolving. The focus is increasingly on a mission they call Make Nice. This is about helping your kids look beyond themselves in order to help others. As a mother, artist and volunteer for organizations very close to my heart, I can say that I love this new direction. I'm engaged in reaching out to my community to help kids with childhood cancer and their mission dovetails beautifully with that.

At the same time, their past issues are readily accessible if I'm looking for a mother/daughter holiday craft project. This blog is the best of many worlds.

Tater Tot Nachos

I was sitting on my couch, sipping some afternoon coffee and going through my email. More specifically, it was the designated time of day I have begun to call Email Time.

Until a couple of months ago, I would check email indiscriminately over the course the day. I was checking email, reading it, deleting it and answering it constantly. Then I developed a different relationship with email. I read about this new approach in an article. Ironically, the article appeared in an email about not checking you email all the time. I read it while I was still checking my email all the time.

Now what I do is I very briefly scan my email, no more than a couple of times a day. If there is an email that is very time-sensitive or extremely important, I deal with it immediately. Otherwise, I have a specific time when I devote some time to reading, deleting, answering and sending emails. One of my favorite activities is putting interesting blog posts I subscribe to in my Blogs to Read Later folder. This is email time.

So I am having a very typical late afternoon email time, and I notice something in there about Tater Tot Nachos. Naturally, an email like this doesn’t come in every day. So I open it up. I immediately put it in the email box titled Recipes.

I don’t call Jeremy at work frequently. Texting is something I do all the time while he is working. Fortunately, Jeremy was available when I phoned. I told him about the Tater Tot Nachos.

Frankly, I expected a little more of a reaction from Jeremy, because I was pretty excited about the idea of making this recipe. He was pretty positive, just not over the moon the way I was.

We were on the same page when it came to my idea to invite some people over for the Mad Men Premiere and serve the Tater Tot Nachos. He started thinking about the kind of cocktail he might like to serve. He became more enthusiastic once we started talking about that.

We finished talking for the time being, and I set about sending a very succinct email inviting a couple of people over. The person who wrote the article about managing email would have approved of how little time I spent composing the email. I mentioned the Tater Tot Nachos.

The people responded very quickly that they would love to come over. Either I happened to send the email during that person’s email time, or they are still in the habit of just being extremely real-time about email.

Hannah came home from school and I told her we would be having a viewing party on Sunday and serving Tater Tot Nachos. I showed her the picture of them that came with the email. She did this little cheer that she likes to do when she’s very excited about something. Now we’re talking!  I thought. She seemed to understand just how great this was going to be.

She asked me to make them for dinner that evening, and I refused to do so. She began to act like she was having a major craving for Tater Tot Nachos and suffering unduly because of it. I ignored Hannah, finished my email time and got up to make the dinner I planned for that evening.

The much-awaited night of the Mad Men premiere was soon upon us. In addition to the Tater Tot Nachos, we served guacamole and chips, cheese and crackers and Jeremy’s homemade Key Lime Pie. As promised, Jeremy also made us a mixed drink. I am not focusing on the drink at this time. This blog post is called Tater Tot Nachos, not The El Pepino Cocktail. Everything was delicious.

While I was preparing the Tater Tot Nachos, I began to feel nostalgic for my childhood, when my mother might prepare hamburgers for dinner, and you might have Tater Tots on the side, even though it wasn’t a special occasion.

Hannah wondered why kids weren’t all obese at the time, and I said that I think its because you were made to go outside and play. You were not allowed in the house between certain hours of the day. It was the same thing at everyone else’s house. There was a simple directive for everyone. Go outside and play.

Nobody was setting up play dates for you either. You weren’t picky about who you played with back in the day. You just played with whoever was outside. Then when it was dinnertime you were famished and washed that dinner down with a nice big glass of Kool-Aid.

The bag of Tater Tots I used in the recipe are made by Ore Ida. On the bag it said, since 1952, which I initially found alarming until I realized that the Ore Ida people meant that they’ve been making Tater Tots since 1952 in general, not claiming that the ones in this bag have been in there that long.

My own experience of eating the Tater Tot Nachos was surprising. I found it to be every bit as delicious as anticipated but more sophisticated than I would have predicted.

People really seemed to go for it. One of our guests asked for a second helping, which speaks for itself.

The only person who didn’t try it was Noah. He found it odd that we had “apparently invited people over to watch Mad Men,” but were instead sitting around eating and drinking together in a darkened living room. Someone explained that this was the social hour before the show goes on. Then we watched the show, which of course, was extremely awesome and even Noah forgot that he doesn’t like it and watched the ending.

It turns out that I adapted the recipe from the original.  Here is my version:

Tater Tot Nachos – serves 6

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
2. Spread one bag of Tater Tots on a baking sheet in an even layer. Bake until golden, 10-12 minutes.
3. Remove the Tater Tots from the oven and sprinkle 1 cup grated cheddar cheese and 1.5 cups of grated Monterey Jack cheese on top. Return to the oven and bake until melted.
4. Top with salsa, chopped cilantro and scallions.

Note about salsa: I used the chunky kind from the refrigerator section of the market, not the jarred variety. I suggest using this, or making your own fresh salsa.

Nutrition information per serving: Don’t ask.

Weight Watchers Points Plus Value per serving: Don’t ask.

If you would like to really go crazy, here is the original recipe.

I Am A Short-Order Cook

It was 5:30 on a weeknight. I commenced dinner preparation.

I had some leftover cooked cheese tortellini from the night before. I combined that with some canned artichoke hearts, grape tomatoes, fresh basil and fresh olive oil vinaigrette. I sautéed some baby kale with rings of white onion with olive oil. I served the tortellini salad over the greens.

This was my dinner. It would have been dinner for Jeremy too except that he was working late that night. He ended up bringing an extra portion of the salad for lunch the next day.

Hannah had cheese tortellini with us the night before, but was a bit concerned about the salad I was making. I whipped together one of her favorite dishes - a pear, toasted walnut and feta salad. On the side I served her a vegetarian corn dog.

I could probably make Noah's dinner in my sleep. For him there was a bowl of angel hair pasta with butter. On the side I served him raw baby spinach with no dressing, a clementine and his favorite artisanal baguette from a lovely neighborhood place. Noah is an extremely picky eater by nature. Along with this are some mitigating factors. It's a long story. This is a dinner he loves.

Fifteen minutes later I laid this attractive and eclectic dinner on the dining room table and called the kids over. There is nothing unusual about the scene I described. But something made me think about it more than I usually would.

I took in the sheer numbers of foods prepared. It looked like a combination of a typical family dinner table and a restaurant. The salads were gorgeous. The dinners were delicious. The kids thanked me and expressed their unprompted appreciation. It was a pleasant repast.

Everyone did their own thing after dinner, feeling satisfied and fortified for the night ahead.

Although this scene is not atypical, it has some variation. My goal is increasingly to have at least three out four of us eating pretty much the same meal. Occasionally that means family pizza night. If Jeremy and I are eating chicken, Noah will usually

join us except that he has recently fired chicken as an acceptable food. I am planning to re-introduce it the next time we eat it. I'm hoping it takes.

Hannah often eats what Jeremy and I are eating when it is a vegetarian or seafood dish. She's come a long way.

In looking at the dinner I cooked and served on this night I had to re-examine the idea I have held of myself as being lousy at multitasking. I was using all four burners of the stove. I did not serve dinner in shifts but managed to getting all to the table at the same time without Jeremy being home to help. And it came together in a shockingly short time. What I did was a cross between making a family meal and catering. I felt rather proud of myself.

I'm hearing some sirens in the distance. Here come the Mommy Police.

I read the same parenting books as everybody else. We introduced our babies to healthy solid foods, one at a time, and carefully. It went badly with Hannah until she could chew. She never really took to baby food. Noah was an awesome eater until he went off the rails at toddlerhood. Jacob was a pretty excellent eater until he needed chemotherapy.

Doing what I'm doing is breaking the cardinal don't be a short-order cook rule of parenting. I know I'm doing it and I do it purposefully and mindfully.

I listen to this good parenting podcast while I'm working out. They often have guests on the show and I usually find value in what they say. Once they had a nutritionist and mom on the show. She'd recently written a book about feeding your family healthfully. She promised to address choosy eaters. I listened with interest.

The cookbook author was the mommy judge-iest, most annoying person I ever heard.  Her kids eat everything because she is a perfect parent.  I was so put off by her bitchy personality that I called the podcast comment line as soon as I got off the treadmill. Once I finished leaving my complaining message about the fascist nutritionist, a thought popped into my head. I'm really glad my kids don't have someone insufferable for a mother.

Here's my belief system on dinner. Life can be hard. Life IS hard. At the very least, everyone deserves a dinner that makes them feel nourished and nurtured. Something that tastes good. I could go on about this, but I won't. That's all of it, in a nutshell.

I'm not going to serve brownies or candy for dinner. That said, I do seem to remember trying to convince Hannah to eat a chocolate chip cookie for breakfast when she was four.

Dinner has to be reasonably nutritious. Beyond that, with pots and pans strewn about my tiny kitchen, I make my way.

Jeremy will be going to a concert tonight, so it's just the three of us. Noah and I will eat together because Hannah arrives home late from piano lessons. For him, I'm making the same thing that I made before, except that it will be sugar snap peas instead of baby spinach. He likes things predictable.

For Hannah and I it will be ravioli with apples and walnuts, a recipe I know we both love. I'll watch her face light up as she comes in tired and hungry from a school and piano lessons. Her food will be served warm from a pot on the stove. I'll be preparing only two meals tonight. That's a piece of cake for a short-order cook.