Challah french toast topped with homemade plum jam.
My dad will carefully touch a finger to his plate to see if it’s been heated. He’s not a complainer, but give him a cold dinner plate and you’ll hear about it with a soft murmur of “not hot.” His caregivers each have their own method for warming the plate. They put it in the oven or the microwave, or run it under hot water, and our boldest nurse places it directly over an open flame on the stove top so that when the eggs hit the plate they sizzle and continue to cook.
This morning I decided to heat everyone’s plates. I wanted everyone to enjoy their french toast piping hot, and to sit down together to eat. I kept a platter going in the oven, and put the plates all around.
My grandmother, Mollye, taught me how to make plum jam. If you’re not lucky enough to have homemade, go out and buy some plum jam. It’s fantastic on french toast.
French Toast (serves 4)
- 3 eggs
- 1/3 c. milk
- 1 tsp. cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. vanilla
- butter for the pan
- 8 slices bread (I use left-over challah)
Whisk up the eggs, and mix in the remaining ingredients. Melt 1-2 Tbs. butter in a large pan. When the butter is very hot, dip each slice of bread, first one side and then the other, and place immediately into the hot pan. Brown well on each side. Keep warm in oven, cover with a clean kitchen towel if the platter will be in the oven more than 10 minutes. Serve with lightly warmed plum jam.
The Plate is My Canvas 
Yummy! When we first started making an effort to say the Sabbath blessings every week, my sweetie teased me that I was mostly motivated by the prospect of leftover-challah-French-toast. He was wrong, of course, but, well…not 100% wrong.
How about a plum jam recipe? For starters, what kind of plums?
(BTW, my mother would have TOTALLY approved of your concern with warm plates. Did you know that many ovens in Britain are sold with a “plate warming” setting?)
The jam uses Italian plums which are also called prune plums. They are available for just a few weeks in the fall. I’ll let you know when I see them, and will post the recipe then as well.
Years ago, Arne and I learned the pleasure of heated plates from my uncle Ned, and now I think it’s just plain uncivilized not to heat them. Why go to all the trouble of cooking a nice HOT meal only to plop it on a cold plate? While dinner is cooking, we put a couple plates in the toaster oven at 200. Perfect. Arne even likes to heat the coffee mugs in the morning. Maybe a little obsessive, but I’m not complaining!
Stephanie,
You guys know how to live!