Cajun-French Toast (Pain Perdu)

• 1 egg
• 2 Tbs. sugar
• 1 cup milk
• dash of nutmeg
• pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons butter
• powdered sugar (optional)
• fresh or prepared blueberries (or your favorite syrup)

Mix first five ingredients together, beat thoroughly. Pour mixture in an open container (such as a casserole dish) large enough to dip the slices of bread. Fry the soaked bread slices in hot butter until browned on both sides. Dust with powdered sugar, top with blueberries or syrup and VOILA!...Cajun-style French toast!

Note: kids like it better when you remove the bread crust. Not a problem! You can use the crust for banana puddings, bread puddings, or slow-dry them and make your own bread crumbs...or, you can break 'em up and feed the birds outside.

When my niece, who lives in Austin, called me and said she and her two preteen boys would be arriving here in Hooks for a visit, I knew that a fancy breakfast had to be in order. Something I know they were not familiar with. So I decided on Pain Perdu, a Cajun-French expression for “lost bread”, and appropriately named because one made this dish out of day-old (or older) sliced bread—just prior to becoming stale and unfit for human consumption...in other words, bread which would be "lost" if you didn't use it straight away. The French word pain means bread--and not an agonizing physical human condition.

There are many variations to French toast. The basics are milk, eggs, sugar, dash of salt, and butter. Whatever spices the kids like you can add to the mixture. It could be nutmeg, cinnamon, berries and toppings of various sorts.