Overnight French Toast Casserole Recipe

I posted on Instagram about my overnight French Toast casserole. A couple of people asked about a recipe. So I decided to dedicate a post to it to share with everyone.

I really love making this dish for Christmas morning, for the guys at work, or on a rare occasion at home. It's such a rich dish, that I don't like to make it all the time. However it is always a hit when I do make it.

It does require a bit of planning in advance. As you make it the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight. I also find that getting the bread a day or so on advance that it helps as well. My favorite is an Italian loaf, which I get from my local store's bakery.

So what you need:

1 loaf of bread (cut or torn into cubes)
1/2 cup of melted butter
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon (or apple pie spice)

5 eggs
1 1/2 cup of milk (I use buttermilk, but you can use regular)
1 tsp vanilla


Cut or tear bread into cubes. Mix your dry ingredients (sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon) in one bowl. Whisk your wet ingredients (milk, eggs and vanilla) into another bowl. Take your melted butter and coat a 13 x 9 baking pan.

Take half of your bread cubes, layer the bottom of your pan. Then take half of your dry mixture and sprinkle over the bread cubes. Take the other half of your bread cubes and layer on top of the first layer. Sprinkle the remaining dry mixture on top. Pour the wet mixture on top.

Then cover the casserole with tin foil. Set in the fridge overnight.

Next morning, preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lift up the corners on the tin foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Then remove the tin foil, and bake for another 15 minutes uncovered.

Lastly (and this is optional) sprinkle the top with powered sugar. The dish is sweet, but is also very delicious with maple syrup.


Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Just stopping by to wish all of my readers a very Merry Christmas! Our little family had such a wonderful day. We were able to see lots of our extended family. It was also nice just to be home and enjoy some of the smaller moments of the day.

Although my house is a mess, I think it will take me a solid week to find all the little bits of wrapping paper. Mister Mans had an awesome time opening up gifts, even helping others open their gifts! What a helpful boy.

We were also able to go to Christmas Eve mass. The sister church to my home church does a family service, and they have a wonderful space in the church for families with little ones, with quiet toys for them to play with / keep them distracted. It was nice to get back into a church. It was great getting to sing carols.

Mister Mans was most obsessed with ringing his bell and blowing out Dada's candle during Silent Night.

I'll post some more pictures later on, these are the ones from my cell phone! I hope you and your family had a lovely Christmas! I have been on facebook for the last few hours just looking at pictures of all my friends with their families, it brings such warmth and joy to my heart.

If you have been a follower of my blog for awhile, you know that I live in New Hampshire. We are used to cold, snowy winters. Christmas Day today we hit a high of 51 degrees while we were in the car! Holy Toledo! That's nearly shorts weather. And no snow to be seen.

Paint Nite!

Recently a girl friend and I had a chance to get away for a GNO (girls night out)! Shaun is a friend who is also a fellow blogger (Go give her some blog love, here!). We signed up for Paint Nite, where you can meet up at a local restaurant, drink and paint. Now I am by no means an artist, but I really enjoy this type of outing.

So Shaun and I met up at the Riverworks Tavern in Newmarket, NH. We met up a little early so we could grab a quick bite to eat. Then we grabbed our drinks and headed to the other side of the restaurant, so we could start our painting.

We met Patrick who would be our instructor for the night. And he showed us the final product, what we would be creating.

Hi Patrick!

Before we began, we had to take an oath, and pledge on our canvas! Poor Shaun could barely make it through the pledge, without breaking out into a giggle fit.

And then we started! The instructor was very good at explaining the steps and was very chill. I enjoy the casual aspect of the night. That we can just go and have a good time. There were people painting their own picture, or their interpretation of the picture of the night, or the painting itself.

The first few paint strokes...

Of course you have to take a selfie

Then we added some mountains in the middle ground.

While we waited for the paint to dry we took a break for a picture.

Shaun and I shared some laughs over randomness and nothing. Truly one of the better nights I have had in a long time. I am so glad we are friends. I was able to talk shop with her and get some blog tips, which kind of reinvigorated me about getting back into the blog world.

So are you ready to see the final product?

Viola!

It was such a great time! This is the third Paint Nite that I have done, and I really do enjoy this type of outing. It's not your typical outing; it's something different. I like that you can still talk with the other people in your party, that you can drink and you get to go home with something. If you don't want to paint what is being instructed, you don't have to, you can make it your own thing.

Photo credit: Paint Nite Portsmouth - Facebook

If you are looking for something to do, I would certainly recommend checking out Paint Nite!

Christmas Season!

Oh how I love the holiday season! I love the weather, I love getting to spend time with family. We've had the opportunity to see Santa and boy, did it not go over well. However we were able to get at least one good shot.

Photo credit: Bushor Photography

Mister mans was being quite the ham that day. And he was so wiggly. All he wanted to do was run around and have fun. Boy did he take a great nap that day.

The following weekend we watched the Christmas Parade in my hometown. Although it rained and was forecasted to rain throughout the whole event; the rain stopped just as the parade stepped off! I couldn't believe our luck! It was nice getting to enjoy the parade and see all the people out and about enjoying the holiday season.

My brother, Brenden and my husband

Oh what a fun time of year this is!

Leaves

With Fall quickly coming to an end, and Winter just around the corner. Which by the way, did I hear the weather people right? Are they calling for a significant snow storm Thursday evening into Friday morning? And it was 54 degrees today.... my goodness, it's New England weather for sure!

Anyways, we took the opportunity to introduce Brenden to leaves and the joy that is playing with them. He went right in, and ever since, whenever we see a pile of leaves, he must run through it.

Obviously it made for some pretty fantastic pictures...

We also took part in a community event, the Touch a Truck event to benefit the Richie McFarland Children's Center. There were so many people there! We ran into many of our friends from the Seacoast. There were a lot of things to do and see. I honestly think that Brenden was a little overwhelmed by the crowds and by the number of trucks/things to do. I think in another year or two this will be a great event for him. However we still enjoyed the family outing.

I can't believe that this week is Thanksgiving. Today we had our Christmas card photo shoot done. So I am excited to see what those pictures will look like. Brenden wasn't super cooperative today, so hopefully the photographer managed to get a few good shots!

Review: Old Factory Candles

I was recently given the opportunity to try out some amazing candles from Old Factory Candles. I opted for the fall harvest collection, which included Pumpkin Spice, Cranberry and Autumn Leaves. To say that these candles smelled heavenly, would be an understatement. I had them burning in my kitchen and they left the room smelling amazing for several hours, never loosing the potency.

What I really like about these candles is that they are soy based, so they burn a lot cleaner as well as they are made in the United States. Whenever I can I try and support businesses in America.

I purchased these candles through Amazon and used their gift wrapping service. When the package arrived, it was so neatly wrapped and presented.










And that's just what amazon did. I really liked the packaging for the candles themselves

















These candles burned very efficiently and cleanly, there was hardly and residue left after I was done. There was a good even burn on them. As I have said before, the smell is amazing, and it lingers.












These candles are billed to burn for approximately 20 hours I had them going for 10 hours, and there was about a third of wax left in the jar. I don't know if it would last a full 20 hours, but I do believe it would be close.

Head over to Amazon and check out my review of the candles!


Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the product mentioned above for free for review purposes. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC


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Fall!

Fall is my favorite season. With October being my favorite month. I enjoy the crispness of the air and obviously the changing of the leaves.

The changing of the season is also a great time to reflect back on a great summer we had. Mister Mans really enjoys being outside, so we took full advantage of that and we were outside as much as we could be.

For the first time in my life, I had a legit tan. You see, being blond and fair skinned my whole life, everytime I would be out in the sun, I would burn. However with Mister Mans, I was diligent about putting on sunscreen for him, as well as myself. And since we were outside almost daily, I would get bursts of exposure. The result was a great base tan. Of course, I was still white, but it took a lot more for me to burn.

One of my many joys is getting to experience this world through Mister Mans eyes. He was becoming more aware of his surroundings this summer and through the fall. Yesterday's big moment was watching the leaves fall from the tree. Which then he proceed to run through the leaves on the ground. Picking up individual leaves to inspect them. Pure amazement.

Despite the weather not being perfect (we have had a dry September) the colors have hit their peak in the last week or so. Soon the colors will fade and that only means that winter is looming.

I don't think I could ever live in a place without seasons. Despite snow being troublesome at times, it's also enjoyable, especially now having a kid. We have a small hill in our yard and I envision many days will be spent sledding down the hill.

This is where I live....







And that is with no filter what so ever!

Happy Fall!




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End of Summer

Holy Moly! How did it get to be the end of summer already? At the beginning of summer, I had all these plans to do day trips with Mister Mans and have fun and enjoy every moment of summer that we could. Fast forward to today, the beginning of Labor Day weekend and I still feel like there is so much left I wanted to do.

Hubby has been on vacation this week so we've taken the opportunity to get some day trips in. We went down to Boston for the Boston Duck Tours. It was great getting to be a tourist for the day. I learned things on the tour that I never knew about Boston. It was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow we are heading to Liquid Planet, which is in Candia. I am hoping that we have some fun, but I am excited to check out a new attraction.

I continue to struggle with the weight. There is a woman who my chiropractor recommends who deals with obese women. She is a nutritionist and a personal trainer, so I am hoping that I can work with her to come up with a game plan that will work for me. I am excited about the potential. I know it's going to be a lot of work, but it's work that is necessary.

Focus / Struggle

Right now my life is focused on raising my son and my home. I feel like I am constantly moving, doing something.

However the scale just seems to never budge, or when it does it goes up.

I need to rework my daily grind and make myself a priority. We have a membership to the YMCA however I haven't been since May.

I prefer to work out in the morning. As of late we've been working on painting the house after Mister Mans goes to bed, and staying up late to do it (midnight). After a long night of painting I just haven't been able to get out of bed early in the morning to get to the Y. I am hoping that soon the painting will be done and I can get to bed at a more reasonable hour so that I can get back into a groove with my workout.

Food is the other struggle.  At work I am constantly eating just out of boredom. I need to focus more on cooking and preparing meals at home. At work, I need to only eat when I am hungry. I used to have lifesavers that I would suck on while I was at work and was just mindlessly eating... I need go buy some more lifesavers.

Oh hello there...

Seriously, how do bloggers keep up with blog posts on a frequent basis? My last post was in January! How quickly life flies by.

September is quickly approaching and Mister Mans is going to be 2.

This summer has been fantastic! Brenden is at a great age where we can go and explore and he has so much fun. Last weekend we went up to North Conway, NH to the Conway Scenic Railway for a Day with Thomas (Brenden's current obsession). We also hit up StoryLand where Brenden got to run around the park and see everything.

We've also been making good use of our pool this summer. Over the Winter and Spring we signed Brenden up for swim lessons through our local Y. He hated it at first.... but we felt since we had a pool and we both love the water, that we would keep at it. We decided to take the summer off since we have our own pool and we would take the lessons we learned in swim and use them in the pool. Well Brenden has taken off in the pool this summer. I cannot wait to go back to the Y and show off my son who now has a love of the pool and water...

He still hates bath time, well when he gets water poured over his head, but hey, I pick my battles right now.

At the beginning of June, hubby and I attempted to paint the interior of our house. We planned on having Brenden stay with the grandparents, so we could focus on painting. Like I said, our original intentions was to paint all 9 rooms. After the second day, we realized that we wouldn't be able to get to all of them. So we made the decision to not work on our bedroom and our bathroom. By the time the week was over, we only had one room 100% done, Brenden's bedroom. Over the 6 weeks, we've gotten more finishing work done. But we still have more work to do. I feel like it's never ending.

We thought a week to do the whole house would be appropriate, we were being optimistic. However it looks like we bit off more than we could chew. Thankfully the end is in sight. And as far as working on the house, that is the major project for us this year.

It's crazy to have your life revolve around a little one, but he gives my life so much joy. He also tests me like none other, but even on the "bad days" I still love him and couldn't imagine my life without him.

We have also gotten to know our neighbors a little more. We moved into a great neighborhood. Our plans revolve more around "play dates" but it's a fun little life.

Hopefully I'll be able to update on a more frequent basis, and heck even post some pictures!

On the weight front, I am the heaviest I have ever been... So there is that... always a work in progress.

Happy new year!

Hello all! I am going to see if this helps me blog more. I purchased an app called "blog press" for my iPad (Christmas gift). Maybe I will blog more since right now, it seems fairly easy to post from this app.

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season, it went by so quickly for me. Brenden is getting so big and had a wonderful Christmas. We are so spoiled and I have no idea where we are going to put all the new toys he got.

My brother and his wife came up from NC. It was great getting to see them and spend some time with them. I do miss them a lot. Especially since we probably will not make it down there to see them this year. Aside from out usual trips this summer, most of our "extra money" will be going to getting some things done around the house, like painting the interior.

New Years came and went. I had to work New Years Day, so I didn't even make it to midnight. I was way too tired. But as usual we got out Chinese food. It was just us, so we didn't play any games. But we still had a great time. I love spending time with my husband.

As far as my weight, well I stepped on the scale and I am 341. Ugh, still way too darn heavy. I got a fitbit for Christmas, and I am getting familiar with it, but I can already see I want to challenge myself to get my steps in. Speaking of fitbit, I need friends! So if you have one, let's be friends!!

I hope you all had a lovely holiday season, let's make 2014 a good and healthy one!



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