Overnight Eggnog French Toast

Let eggnog elevate your holiday cooking to a new level with Overnight Eggnog French Toast. It's a no fuss recipe that can be made ahead so you have more time to visit with your company. The cinnamon sugar flavors sprinkled over the french toast right before baking make it a real crowd pleaser. Bacon or ham are a perfect side.
The recipe can easily be doubled for a 13 x 9 pan. I used a 9 inch glass pan.
Recipe adapted from Food Network Magazine December 2017 and serves 4 using 12 slices of bread.

Ingredients: 

• 4 large eggs
• 1 cup half and half
• 1/2 cup eggnog
• 1 TB. each granulated sugar and brown sugar
• 1/2 TB. vanilla extract
• 1/4-1/2 tsp. nutmeg
• 1 tsp. Saigon cinnamon 
• 1/8 tsp. salt
• 1 loaf challah bread or another dense firm bread e.g. Italian, Peasant, cut into 12 slices 
• Mixture of 1 TB sugar mixed with 1/4 tsp. cinnamon

Directions:

• Whisk eggs in a large bowl. Whisk in half and half, eggnog, sugars, vanilla, salt and nutmeg. 
• Grease baking pan well especially the bottom so bread slices do not stick during baking. 
• Dip each bread slice in eggnog mixture and arrange in 2 lengthwise rows, shingling the slices. Pour remaining egg mixture over the baking dish.

• Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. 
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Unwrap dish, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar mixture over the top.
• Bake 30 minutes until browned and puffed. Let sit 5 minutes before serving with warmed syrup.       

NATIVE AMERICAN HERITAGE MONTH 

Spotlight on St. Kateri Teckakwitha 
She is the first Native American to be declared a Saint. St. Kateri was canonized on 10/21/2012 by Pope Benedict Her feast day is July 14. She is the patroness of the environment and ecology as is St. Francis of Assisi.

Kateri was born near the town of Auriesville, New York, in the year 1656. Tekakwitha is the name she was given by her Mohawk people. It translates to "She who bumps into things."

Kateri was the daughter of a Mohawk warrior. She was four years old when her mother died of smallpox. The disease also attacked Kateri and transfigured her face. She was adopted by her two aunts and an uncle. She refused to marry and converted to Christianity as a teenager. She was baptized at the age of twenty and incurred the great hostility of her tribe for becoming Christian. Although she had to suffer greatly for her Faith, she remained firm in it.

Kateri went to the new Christian colony of Indians in Canada. Here she lived a life dedicated to prayer, penitential practices, and care for the sick and aged. Every morning, even in bitterest winter, she stood before the chapel door until it opened at four and remained there until after the last Mass. She was devoted to the Eucharist and to Jesus.

She died on April 17, 1680 at the age of twenty-four. Immediately after her death it was reported people noticed a physical change. Her face that had been so marked and swarthy, suddenly changed and became beautiful and so white. Later Kateri became known as the "Lily of the Mohawks". 

Devotion to Kateri is responsible for establishment of Native American ministries in Catholic Churches all over the United States and Canada. Kateri was declared venerable by the Catholic in 1943 and she was Beatified in 1980. Hundreds of thousands have visited shrines to Kateri erected at both St, Francis Xavier and Caughnawaga and at her birth place at Auriesville, New York. Pilgrimages at these sites continue today.