Vegan French Toast!Serves Six People (two slices each)

Growing up my family had a french toast tradition waking up after that one eve a year that the scary man shoots down the chimney and drops strange objects in the house. We'd all eagerly sit around the table waiting for my father to finish cooking up the in house favorite: eggnog french toast. The eggnog is what made it a killer seasonal delicacy. The strange thing is, I can't stand eggnog! It's never been a favorite, but makes for a tasty secret ingredient in french toast. Now days it's possible to purchase Vegan eggnog (which I swear tastes better than the real thing), but it's also only out seasonally.

This particular recipe trades eggs for a few bananas, giving it an even sweeter taste, and spices up some almond milk to give it an "eggnoggish" taste. If you've ever attempted to skillet up a vegan french toast recipe you've probably found that it tends to stick more to the pan. The secret fix is being sure keep a slick pan by applying some vegan margarine (I prefer Earth Balance) between each grilling to keep the bread from sticking. Also keeping the pan at a even low-medium heat does wonders.

Ingredients

• 3 ripe bananas
• 3/4 cup vanilla almond milk (Or add your own vanilla)
  
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon of real maple syrup
  
• 1 loaf of vegan Cinnamon Raisin bread (12 pieces)
  

The Bread:

The bread can make or break any french toast recipe. You want a loaf that's cut into thick slices. While cinnamon raisin bread isn't necessary to making these delicious, it certainly helps! No matter what bread you choose, you want it to have some density to it so that it doesn't overly soggy too quickly.

The Prep:

• Grab the blender and add in all your ingredients. What could be easier?

• Pour a little bit of the mixture into a small bowl. You'll want just enough to cover one side of whatever bread you've chosen but not enough to drowned each piece. Coat one side of the bread and then flip it over to coat the other side. I use a fork to scrape off any excess batter. The idea is to allow the bread to soak up the flavor and leave each surface relatively batter free.

• Heat-up your pan on medium heat with a bit of Vegan margarine and make sure it's covered evenly.

• Fry each piece of bread until it reaches a golden brown color and then flip and repeat. You want to cook it long enough so that it is toasty to the core but not burnt.

• Once you've fried up your complete batch, serve. You may think these are going to need more maple syrup... but trust me, they're good enough by themselves!

• Finally NOM!

When the right season comes around, try using Vegan eggnog instead of almond/soy/rice milk. The difference is delicious. Please write me and let me know if you've given this recipe a try!