ORANGE PECAN BAKED FRENCH TOAST

6 eggs

1 ½ cups orange juice

½ cup milk

¼ cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp nutmeg (freshly grated is best)

1” thick slices of French bread (cut on diagonal)

¾ cup chopped pecans

Beat together eggs, juice, milk, sugar, vanilla and nutmeg.  Grease a large baking dish (15x10). Arrange bread slices in bottom of baking dish. Squeeze tightly together. Pour juice mixture over bread. Cover and refrigerate overnight. When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees; carefully, turn over each piece of bread. Sprinkle with pecans. Cover loosely with foil and bake for 25 min. Uncover and bake for 5-10 minutes more or until very lightly browned on top and egg mixture is set. Serve with Orange Syrup.

ORANGE SYRUP

1 cup sugar

½ cup butter

2 cups orange juice

1-2 teaspoons cornstarch, softened in a little orange juice

Melt butter over low heat, add sugar and orange juice. DO NOT BOIL. Slowly stir in cornstarch mixture until consistency of thick maple syrup or desired thickness.

Serve warm with French toast

Notes. This makes a large pan, enough for 8-10 people. You can also sprinkled Dried Cranberries over top before baking.  Both toast and syrup can be made with Splenda and works fine. If using Splenda for syrup, heat butter and juice till butter is melted. Slowly sprinkle in Splenda while stirring constantly, (otherwise, it will “clump”) Recipe can easily be cut in half.