Whole Wheat French Toast Casserole

Want comfort food on a cold snowy morning without the guilt? Whamo!

• 1 small loaf of hearty crusty whole wheat bread (the kind from the bakery, not the soft stuff)
  
• 10 eggs
• 3 cups unsweetened soy milk (most recipes call for 3 cups of half & half. Seriously?!)
  
• 1 tablespoon Sugar in the Raw
  
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract (I know it seems like a lot, but it was good)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (I did way more)
  
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• real maple syrup
  

Cut the bread up into 1 inch cubes and dump into a greased 9x13 baking dish. Mix the eggs, milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg and pour over bread.

Bake at 350 for 45 or so minutes (I'm at 9,000 feet so I did about an hour), until the egg is cooked and the bread is browned. I took it out, lightly drizzled grade B organic maple syrup over it and returned it to the oven and turned the oven off. I did this because I wanted the syrup flavor there, without adding additional syrup to our portions. (I'm terrified of sugars and hate adding them, can't you tell?)

It was delicious. We didn't add butter or syrup to our servings because the flavors were balanced. Perfect for a cold, snowy morning where you end up sitting around in sweats and drinking coffee until 1pm. Next time I'll add orange zest and maybe a few raisins. You really can't mess this up.