Its Back To School time and that means chaos. At least it does for me. If it doesn’t mean chaos for anyone else then oh well. But part of Back to School means that I can’t be sure what my daughter is eating for lunch. Oh I know what we packed, or what is on the lunch menu for the day, but even though she is going in to first grade I can’t help but wonder. And that also means when she gets home and wants a snack, I want to make sure I’m not just giving her cookies and milk, I want her eating something somewhat healthy, but I have to do it in a way that sneaks up on her. It has to be something tasty and yummy but not junk. And that has led us to the Monte Cristo Roll Up.
I am attempting to adapt something that has become a fun weekend breakfast treat into a fun weekday treat. I call them Monte Cristo Roll Ups and they’re our take on French toast roll ups. In case you don’t know what a French toast roll up is, I’m going to enlighten you on that as well.
You start with some bread and a basic French toast batter. Is it called a batter? Whatever.
French Toast Roll up
4 pieces of Nature’s Harvest Bread
4 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon vanilla (the hubby would dump about a cup in if I let him)
Cinnamon (again with the hubby, just put as much as you like)
I know a lot of French toast recipes will call for slightly stale bread. That won’t work for this, you need fresh bread. Beat all the ingredients together in a bowl and transfer to a shallow dish of some kind. Now when making French toast this is where you would dump in the bread and cook it up. But this is a roll up people!! Take your bread and flatten it out with a rolling pin. Spread on some peanut butter or Nutella or Jelly (Smuckers Triple Berry…YUMM) or Peanut Butter AND Jelly or Jelly and Cream Cheese, and then roll it up. Now dunk that in the French toast batter and coat all sides. Transfer that to a skillet over medium-high heat and cook it until it’s golden brown on all sides. When it comes out, roll it in some cinnamon sugar for extra yumminess.
So that is our weekend breakfast treat. How do we turn that into a weekday afternoon Monte Cristo? Very simple. First, skip the cinnamon sugar step completely and leave the cinnamon out of the French toast batter. Second, instead of the sweet fillings in the weekend version, roll out the bread and then top it with a piece of ham and Swiss cheese. Roll that up and dunk it in the French toast batter.
Now with the weekend version, the filling usually holds it together. With the weekday version, you may need a piece of that cooking twine or a toothpick or something until it can cook and the cheese gets melty and the bread crispy and French toasty. The hubby experimented and found that it was just easiest to roll it up and hold it while he rolled it in the French toast batter. That seemed to let it keep its shape until it got into the frying pan. Try what works for you. When you little ones get home pair this with a little dipping cup of honey mustard and your little ones will probably be in heaven. I know mine was.
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