Devon's Cooking.... Sugar Cookies and French Toast

Dave's brother, Ian, and his wife, Ashley, have four gorgeous daughters who we were lucky enough to have in San Diego for almost a week last week. The girls-- Kailey (8), Kara (7), Kassie (4) and Korrine (2)-- are amazing... gorgeous, funny, well-behaved and cool to hang with.

Kassie is a tow-head and with two brunette parents, people often ask where she came from. Ian and Ashley used to answer: "She looks like her Uncle David," but some people took this the wrong way. I joked that they could say she looked like "the milkman" instead, but realized that instead of implicating my husband as the father, I was implicating my Dad! :)

But I digress-- though Kailey, Kara and Korrine don't look as much like Dave's children, they all sort of got to be our kids Tuesday night when we had a sleepover with all four of them. For those of you who've been to our house, you know it sucks for kids-- white leather, no toys, hard surfaces...so we decided to keep everyone occupied by a) making everything we ate from scratch and b) getting everyone so full they would sleep through the night. Mission Accomplished!: we made homemade pizzas for dinner, sugar cookies for dessert and french toast for breakfast the next morning. It was a feast any kid could enjoy-- oh yeah, and the girls liked it almost as much as we did!

Individual Pizzas
Ingredients:
1 package Trader Joe's fresh pizza dough
cheese
turkey pepperoni
diced onion
diced mushrooms
Pizza sauce

Directions: Sautee onions and mushrooms with salt, pepper and oregano until soft. Separate dough into four and roll out each individually. Put sauce, toppings and cheese on your dough and bake about 8-10 minutes.

Rolled Sugar Cookies
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

DIRECTIONS: In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely. Frost as you like!

FRENCH TOAST
Ingredients:
3 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla
1/8 tsp salt
8 slices thickly sliced french bread

Directions: In medium bowl, combine all ingredients but bread; whisk until well combined. Dredge each slice of bread in mix and place on hot griddle or skillet over medium heat (or 375 if you use a skillet). Cook each side about 4 minutes or until done.