Cinnamony French toast, homemade pancake syrup, and take-that-Starbucks

You know those times you try something new in the kitchen and it's a complete flop?

I definitely have experienced that.

Today, however, was not one of those times. Today I tried THREE new things and they ALL worked! I was so excited.

We had French toast for breakfast this morning, one of Joshua's favorites. I love putting cinnamon in the batter that the bread gets dipped in (I REALLY like cinnamon), but usually the cinnamon doesn't mix in and just floats on top. So the first few slices get lots of cinnamon on them and the last few don't get any. Not cool. Today I changed around how I mixed the ingredients for the batter and it worked beautifully!

First, I beat two eggs in a medium bowl. Then I added about 1/4 cup dark brown sugar and beat it again till there weren't any lumps. Next I mixed in about 1/3-1/2 cup plain (homemade) yogurt (I don't usually measure) and beat again till smooth. Then I whisked in 1 teaspoon of cinnamon and it mixed in beautifully! Finally I added 1/2 cup 2% milk (or so), and it was perfect. Usually I mix the eggs and milk first, so it starts out pretty runny. This time the batter was quite thick when I added the cinnamon, so the cinnamon mixed in well. It made amazing French toast!

While I was cooking the French toast I made homemade syrup to go on it. Last night I Googled "homemade pancake syrup" and found this recipe. It was so easy, and it tasted incredible--my husband absolutely loved it. I don't know if we'll quit the store-bought syrup altogether, but we'll definitely be using this pretty often. I added about a teaspoon of butter and a few drops of vanilla extract to the mixture after I took it off the heat, plus a little extra water because it was getting thick. I poured it into a half-pint jar when it was still hot, and it solidified in there pretty quickly as it cooled, but I'll just microwave it before I need to use it again. I know it's still lots of sugar, but at least there aren't any weird ingredients like in store-bought syrup, and NO high fructose corn syrup! Yay!

Finally, I made a homemade chai latte this morning. Yeah, you read that right.

I felt like cinnamony, spicy tea to go with the French toast, and then it hit me: if I can make a latte with coffee and hot milk, why not make a chai latte with tea and hot milk? Duh.

It worked. Really well.

I steeped a chai tea bag in half a mug of boiling water, for quite a while (to get it strong). I added milk to mostly fill the mug and popped the whole thing in the microwave for a minute and a half to heat it up well (you could just steep a chai tea bag in a saucepan of 1 cup milk, too, and forgo the water entirely). The milky tea, a healthy teaspoon of coconut oil, and about 1/2 teaspoon of honey went in the pitcher for my immersion blender and I blended it like I do with my coffee (for about a minute, agitating the blender to incorporate a lot of air into the stuff). I finally realized why it gets such a rich foam: the fat from the coconut oil helps the milk (just 2%) get really foamy and creamy. YUM.

Man, it was good. I'm doing this all the time now, when I don't make a coffee latte. Seriously, who needs Starbucks?!?

I apologize for how long this ended up being, but I hope you go try at least one of these things. I kind of tend to geek out over food. Good food, that is. You won't find me going into raptures over a burger and fries. (Unless, of course, it's a homemade burger, grilled and juicy, with oven-baked fries tossed in olive oil... sorry. I'll stop now.)