French Toast with Fried Bananas

French toast may be my favorite breakfast food. There’s nothing better than a nice plate of French toast drizzled with syrup for a weekend brunch. Today I made it a little special by topping it with a banana that needed to get used. I had a little trouble with my French toast this morning because the bread broke apart for some reason. Maybe it was the bread I used or maybe the bread was starting to get old. So it isn’t exactly the prettiest it can be, but it still tasted great.

Ingredients (makes 3 or 4 pieces):

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup of milk
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 3-4 slices of bread
• butter
• 1 banana

Combine the eggs, milk, vanilla and cinnamon in a dish (all of the measurements are approximate). Then dip the bread in the batter and let it coat each side. Fry in large skillet with about 1/2 a tablespoon of butter until each side is golden brown.

For the banana, I just peel and slice into about 1/2 inch pieces and then fry them in a tablespoon of butter. The banana I used was very ripe and therefore quite sweet. The ripeness of the banana is just something to keep in mind when deciding how much syrup you want to add and how sweet you want your plate to be. If it is less ripe then you can caramelize the banana by adding some brown sugar to the pan that you fry them in.

I topped the French toast with the bananas and drizzled with syrup. Yum!

Note: You may notice that nutmeg and sugar are absent from my French toast batter. Nutmeg would be a great addition, but I don’t have any currently. As far as the sugar goes, I think there’s enough sweetness from the syrup and bananas that you don’t really need it. If you want, you can try using almond extract or amaretto instead of vanilla extract for a slightly different taste.