Earth Day got me thinking about my every day cooking and my impact upon our earth. Each day I prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner for a growing family- and within a day or two I am almost always throwing out leftovers, fruits that I bought too much of, vegetables that I decided not to make…. How is all this waste impacting the environment? Here a few facts just to give you an idea of the food being wasted in America:

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), just over a quarter of the country’s food — about 25.9 million tons — gets thrown in the garbage can every year. It then costs the government 1 Billion dollars to dispose of all of this waste.

So tomorrow morning instead of throwing out my challah from Saturday Shabbat lunch, I will be making baked challah french toast!

Ingredients:

1 loaf cinnamon raisin challah bread (Plain challah bread works great with this recipe as well)

3 eggs

2 cups whole milk (Sometimes I do one cup skim and one cup whole)

3 tsp. vanilla extract

1/4 cup sugar mixed with 1/2 tsp of cinnamon

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

Slice Challah bread in 2 inch thick slices  and place in pyrex that has been sprayed with pam.

Combine eggs, milk, and vanilla extract in a bowl and pour over bread.  Let the bread soak up the mixture. Flip slices of bread and let it continue to soak up the mixture- this should only take a few minutes.

Sprinkle the cinnamon and sugar mixture over the bread.

Bake 20-25 minutes