Apple Raisin Bread French Toast

With Myles in the hospital and me here at home with sick kids I have to keep busy. Last week we bought stuff to make Raisin Bread French Toast. We never got to it, but today I decided to make it and have it for breakfast tomorrow.  Everyone loves it - even Ryan who doesn't really like cooked raisins. We make this for Christmas breakfast sometimes. We also made it for the party we had after Genna's baptism.

1 pound loaf cinnamon raisin bread, cut in cubes
1 (8 ounce) package of cream cheese, cut in small pieces
1 large granny smith apple
8 eggs
1 can evaporated milk
1 cup milk
6 Tablespoons butter, melted.

1/4 cup maple syrup

Spray a 9x13 pan with cooking spray. Put in half of the cubed bread in pan.

Sometimes we can find this yummy bread at Costco- comes in a pack of 2 loaves. We freeze one for later.

 Layer it with cream cheese and then the apples. (You could add extra apples or raisins here too!)

Top with the other half of the bread cubes.

 Mix the milk, butter, eggs and maple syrup. Pour over the bread. Cover with plastic wrap and press down so all the bread pieces are soaked. Cover and refrigerate over night.

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cook for 45 minutes. Let stand for 10 minutes before serving.

Lemon Gingersnap Cookies

Adria and I wanted to make cookies a few days ago. We found a recipe for Orange Spiced Ginger cookies, but we didn't have any oranges. So we decided to use lemons instead.. The original recipe only used the zest of the orange, but we decided that wouldn't be enough lemon flavor, so we added some fresh lemon juice too. But if you add juice, you have to add for flour too. When we finished they tasted GREAT! Have you ever tried Carr's Ginger Lemon Cremes Cookies. They have them as Costco sometimes. They are a crunchy gingersnap sandwich cookie filled with a lemon frosting. These taste like that. But are much softer and don't have to frosting. So here it is:

Ingredients:
3/4 C shortening
1 C sugar, plus more for rolling
1 large egg
1/4 C molasses
2 1/2 C flour
2 t baking soda
1 t ground cinnamon
1 t fresh grated ginger  (you could used ground too)
1/2 t ground cloves
1/2 t salt
zest of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Line cookie sheets with  a silpat mat. Mix shortening and sugar. Add the egg and the molasses and beat until completely incorporated.
Add baking soda, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, lemon zest and juice. Mix wall
Add the flour. You may need to add more if your lemon was super juicy, but the 2 and 1/2 cups worked for us.
Stir until combined. Roll the dough into 1 inch balls and roll in sugar.
Place on cookie sheets.
Bake for 8-10 minutes or until just set around the edges and you start to see “crackling” on the top.
We baked ours for 8 mins. Some of the centers were still on the undercooked side, but the cookies were still soft 2 days later!

I've been thinking about doing this for awhile. Everyone else does. So why not us? Today I made cookies that are delicious!! Lemon Gingersnaps- I made up the recipe myself. It inspired me to get started on this. I will post the recipe and pictures later.