Blueberry French Toast Casserole

 Yesterday we went blueberry picking in the morning, today, I made homemade blueberry french toast casserole with homemade blueberry sauce.

My nieces thinks this dish looks good enough to be served at the finest of hotels. I pulled out my pretty blue and white china bowls and we had a lovely breakfast together. 

We went shopping last night for a few missing ingredients for blueberry syrup, and my little niece printed this recipe from a machine at the grocery store. It is called "Get Stuffed French Toast" and is available at Family Fare courtesy of Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board.  It serves 8 and takes 10 min to prep and 1 hr to cook. 

I took a full loaf of french bread and cut it in slices and tore them into small pieces. I greased a 9X13 in baking dish and put down a layer of bread. On top of this I laid thin slices of Wisconsin Havarti Cheese, then I added a sprinkling of fresh picked blueberries. Next, I layered the remaining torn pieces of french bread and set aside. 

In a seperate bowl, beat 6 eggs, 4 cups milk, 1/2 cup sugar, 1/4 cup maple syrup ( I used homemade syrup), 2 tbsp melted butter, and a sprinkling of cinnamon. Pour this over the bread and cheese mixture and press down on all the ingredients with a spatula. This will make the bread soak up the egg mixture. I then sprinkled fresh picked blueberries on top, sprinkled on some more cinnamon, and covered with tin foil. Bake this at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, then remove the foil and bake an additional 30 minutes. 

Serve with homemade blueberry sauce and enjoy. 

For the homemade blueberry sauce, I put about 3-4 cups blueberries in a saucepan with 1 cup water and 1/2 cup sugar and brought to a boil, all the while mashing the berries with a potatoe masher. I let it simmer for a few minutes and then drizzled it over our french toast. 

YUMMY! We all loved it. I am sure I will make this again and again using a different fruit each time. 

We may be picking Raspberries next week. I think Raspberry French Toast will be Awesome!

Blueberry Picking

My dad took me and my nieces blueberry picking this morning at a local farm. It was a great time. We only spent about an hour and a half there, but I picked a whole bucket. I told everyone else they were pitiful pickers because their 3 buckets combined equaled the amount in my bucket. The girls complained that it was too hot and they were going to dehydrate , I just chuckled and told them I was sure they would live long enough to leave the blueberry patch.

 In the end we spent $12 on fresh picked blueberries and had a great time together. Afterwards we went out to lunch at a local wings joint that offers a wide variety of sauces for their wings, and then we went home and browsed blueberry recipes online.

Tomorrow morning we are making some "Get Stuffed Blueberry French Toast" , blueberry scones, and blueberry syrup. I will be sure to share pics when we are done cooking. My nieces plan to get up early just to bake. I 'd better set my alarm to make sure I get up on time.

Sunday Postcard Art - Graffiti Style

This card is 4X6 and is all hand drawn using sharpies and hi-lighted with the ever elusive sharpie white permanent marking stick with an extra bold tip. If anyone knows if they have a fine tip or ultra fine tip white sharpie, please let me know where I might find one. 

This week's theme for Sunday Postcard Art is Street Art! I was a little stumped creatively at first, but I started doodling and the next thing I know I had a bright colorful card that reminded very much of graffiti. I don't live in a big city, but little bits of graffiti have popped up around my own home town, colorful cartoony characters and puffy words that the city is slowly painting over.  And occasionally when I get stopped at the RR tracks in BC I am able to sit back and admire the graffiti art on passing railway cars and wonder what city the car was in when the artist created such colorful work.

I hope you enjoy my little submission as much as I enjoyed making it. It has really inspired me creatively and I think I am going to spend this afternoon making some ATCs.

Thanks for the artistic jumpstart Sunday Postcard Art!

And The WINNER is ...........

Congratulations Cindy Jo!

Now you can add 3 more stamps to your collection! Just pick any 3 stamps from the Giveaway post , there are 7 total, and email me with your selection and your shipping address. Your stamps will go out in the mail on Monday!

This drawing was done the old fashioned way. Each name was written on a slip of paper, folded up, and placed into a bowl. The paper pieces were mixed up, and my 9 yr old niece happily drew a slip of paper out of the bowl and read the name to me.

Thanks to everyone for participating and making this a successful Giveaway! I hope to have many more in the future so be sure to stop by once and while and see what's going on :)

Rubber Stamp Giveaway! 4th of July!

Comment on this post until 11:59pm today , July 1st, and you will be entered into a Random Drawing to be held tomorrow, July 2nd,  at noon. If enough people comment, I will giveaway 2 sets of stamps. There are a total of 7 stamps with a 4th of July theme, so I will break them into 2 sets.

Here is the first stamp. It is a large stamp to be used for a background stamp or embellishment on colored or decorative paper for card making, scrapbooking or any other paper art.

The stamp shown here has a slight error, I missed the cross of the "T" in  the word "equality", so I will be carving a new stamp to giveaway.

here are 3 more stamps in this series. The last 3 will be uploaded later this evening so STAY TUNED!

Here are the final 3 stamps in this series!

The winner will receive their pick of 3 stamps from the entire set!

Good Luck! and Happy Stamping :)