Happy Elvis French Toast

This morning, as I was staring at the “end of the week” pantry contents with coffee in hand, trying to pep up and think of what to make for breakfast, I distinctly heard (okay, maybe imagined) Elvis talking to me…

“Listen here, little lady… what you need here is a peanut butter’n nana sandwich with bacon. Uh-huh-huh…………uh-huh-huh… ooooooohhhhh, yeeaaah.”

And, I agreed.

The problem was that I didn’t actually have any peanut butter on hand, and I knew that defrosting my stash of emergency bacon (meant for the Super Bowl) wasn’t going to be fast enough to squash my or Bear’s breakfast hunger.  In addition to that, I kept imagining that the bloated, fat, depressed Elvis was the one talking to me, not the younger, happier, healthier Elvis (pre-Quaaludes).  As luck would have it, I had almond butter, bananas, bread and turkey bacon on hand.  Luck meaning: we went on a detox cleanse that lasted all of three days and had left over healthier options in the kitchen.  Thus, breakfast became “Happy Elvis French Toast.”

As part of the detox, I’d rid the house of butter (another bad move on my part), and I really needed to use up the eggs and almond milk in the fridge.  So, I thought what better way to finish off the couple of eggs and almond milk than to make French toast!  By the time I’d set everything up, Bear was fully functioning and in the kitchen ready to assist.  I have to give him 100% credit for the assembling of the dish and for the eating of half the bacon which led to the smiley face toppers.  See Exhibit A.

The recipe is really easy, and everything was finished in less than 15-20 minutes tops.  According to Bear what actually “took forever” was my photo taking that prevented him from eating. 🙂

Here we go:

4 Eggs
2 Cups Almond Milk
1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Zest of 1 Orange
1/8 tsp Stevia Extract
Pinch of Salt
1/2 tsp Cinnamon Powder
1/2 tsp Freshly Ground Nutmeg
6 Slices Bread (we used plain ol’ white bread but you can fancy this up with Challah or Sourdough and Elvis would swoon)
3 Bananas
1/4 Cup Almond Butter
6 Slices of Turkey Bacon Cut in Half
Syrup to Taste

Roughly slice up the bananas and set aside. Heat up a skillet and cook off the turkey bacon to your liking – we are medium crispy folks in our house. Set aside. In a dredging dish (I used a rectangular baking dish – you can use whatever fits the size of the bread with wiggle room), add the eggs, almond milk, vanilla, zest, sweetener extract, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Gently whisk all ingredients together until the eggs have thoroughly incorporated with the milk.  By the way, you don’t have to use Stevia; again, part of the detox and now had to be used.  Use a teaspoon of sugar if you’d like – just adds a little sweetness.

Heat up the same skillet you cooked the turkey bacon in – take it to about medium. At this point you can add a pat of butter if you have it on hand or do some sort of non-stick butter spray… or just wing it with the turkey bacon drippings (won’t be much). Fat Elvis would say, “Uh-huh… Butter please.”

Happy Elvis would go for the spray or turkey bacon drippings.

Dredge the bread in the wet mixture until it has soaked up a good deal of the batter but isn’t falling apart. Transfer to the medium heated skillet and let brown on one side – approximately a minute or so. Flip over and leave for another minute or until browned. Remove from skillet and immediately use a butter knife to spread a thin, even amount of almond butter over the top. Add three half slices of bacon to the top and then layer on several slices of banana. Add a light drizzle of syrup to taste.

Repeat these steps until you can hear Elvis saying, “Thank ya – thank ya very much.”

We stopped at three layers.  

Now, if you have a Bear-like personality in your home, you may find several slices of turkey bacon will have lost their halves or thinned out dramatically. No worries. Have some fun with it and make smiley faces! While I’m sure Fat Elvis would have liked real bacon, maybe even maple or peppered bacon, and he would have also probably used Challah bread and tons of butter, Happy Elvis French Toast doesn’t make you feel like you’ve eaten a ton of bricks. Plus, you can still do some killer dance moves after eating the Happy Elvis version.  Enjoy!