#storm sandy

Today's post is all about comfort food. I am a big comfort food person myself and love all things that are sweet and warm and smell like home. I am posting my French Toast Casserole Recipe today for a very special cause - Food Bloggers Support for Sandy.

I came across the Creative-Culinary Blog and her idea to help the victims of Storm Sandy by posting comfort food recipes and urging reader to donate to the relief efforts. I have been reading about all the devastation and felt the need to help. I have heard first hand accounts from friends and family and the devastation just grew with the second storm hitting this already hard hit area. So please. Every little bit helps. Even $1 or 2 can make a difference if we all give a little. Please donate and help those who have lost so much!

And as a thank you I am re-posting my French Toast Casserole Recipe:

{French Toast Casserole}

5 cups of cubed bread

4 beaten eggs

1 1/2 cups of milk

1/4 cup sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup butter

1/3 cup of pancake mix

cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

{Instructions}

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees.

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in your casserole dish.

(just put the casserole dish with the butter into the oven for a couple of minutes :)

In large bowl mix beaten eggs, milk, 2 tablespoons of sugar, salt and vanilla together.

Then add 1/3 cup of pancake mix and mix well.

Carefully add bread to mixture and coat well.

(You can also add bread to casserole dish and pour the milk-egg mixture over it. If you do, let the dish stand for a couple of minutes until all the liquid is absorbed. I like tossing the bread - even though it is messy - because it coats the bread faster :)

Add to buttered casserolle dish.

Cut remaining butter into small pieces and sprinkle of the French Toast Casserole, then

sprinkle with remaining sugar and cinnamon to taste (I add the rest of the sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon of cinnamon).

Bake at 400 degrees for about 15 - 20 minutes or until brown and crispy.

I serve mine with applesauce or fruit and we never have left overs :)

Thank you so much for visiting my blog today!

If you'd like to donate to the Red Cross please just click the button below:

More ways to help:

American Red Cross is providing food, shelter, and other forms of support to hurricane victims. You can donate directly to the Red Cross or  you can also text the word “Redcross” to 90999 to make a $10 donation.

The Salvation Army is also focused on providing food, shelter, and support to victims, and takes donations for storm relief.

Feeding America is providing food, water and supplies to those who need it as part of their disaster relief program.

Please also visit my friend's blogs and their wonderful posts in Support for Sandy:

Bentobloggy

Bentoriffic Creative-Food

New Jersey Transit's struggle to recover from Superstorm Sandy is being compounded by a pre-storm decision to park much of its equipment in two rail yards that forecasters predicted would flood, a move that resulted in damage to one-third of its locomotives and a quarter of its passenger cars.

That damage is likely to cost tens of millions of dollars and take many months to repair, a Reuters examination has found.

The Garden State's commuter railway parked critical equipment - including much of its newest and most expensive stock - at its low-lying main rail yard in Kearny just before the hurricane. It did so even though forecasters had released maps showing the wetland-surrounded area likely would be under water when Sandy's expected record storm surge hit. Other equipment was parked at its Hoboken terminal and rail yard, where flooding also was predicted and which has flooded before.

Among the damaged equipment: nine dual-powered locomotive engines and 84 multi-level rail cars purchased over the past six years at a cost of about $385 million.

LIPA STYLE (by WBLI)

So this is legit what my mom tells me what Long Island is like. 

For those of you not from Long Island

LIPA= Long Island Power Authority

There’s nothing like a cheesy “Jesus” movie to diminish your childhood imagination of Bible stories, until... you hear that Russell Crowe is starring as Noah in a film adaption of the biblical epic.

Yes, Russell Crowe is set to play Noah under the direction of Darren Aronofsky, truly to be a story hour (even 2 hopefully) of gigantic proportions. Director Darren Aronofsky was last known for his Academy Award winning film The Black Swan - a far cry away from a Bible story. And Noah, no doubt, is far cry from what most of fans would anticipate for Aronofsky's next project. While some of his cult-followers, from previous the films like Requiem for a Dream and Pi, may be disappointed by this seemingly safe and reserved choice of a film, this is certain not to be some kind of cardboard box Noah’s Ark reenactment you may have seen in Sunday school.

Aronosky, using his twitter a board for updates and peeks into the film-making process, has been waiting on this project for sometime. "I dreamt about this since I was 13. And now it's a reality. Genesis 6:14 #noah,” sounds like a movie that's been in his mind for a while, one likely to rock the boat of versions we've read from illustrated books as kids. His tweet refers to when God told Noah to “Make thee an ark of gopher wood, rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch" and make thee an ark, Darren did, or still is. Located in Oyster Bay N.Y., the foundations of the film’s own ark had been set up weeks ago. Though the filming began in Iceland with the crew, including previous choice cast members such as Jennifer Connelly and famous faces like Emma Watson (sure to draw a crowd all on it’s own,) it’s final three weeks that were brought to Brooklyn New York were interrupted by Storm Sandy. 

Literally Sandy took the production by surprise, and washed out Noah’s ark, or at least did some serious damage, presenting the cast with more of a method approach their performance than they bargained for. Emma Watson, also keeping fans up to date through twitter, posted after the storm “I take it that the irony of a massive storm holding up the production of Noah is not lost.” But hold your breath audiences. We will not be able to see Noah and his ark until 2014.