Acorn squash french toast

One of the great ways that you can have frugal meals is to use up your leftovers in a creative way. This morning I was watching the news and they featured a recipe called "pumpkin french toast". I thought that sounded pretty good, but I don't have any pumpkin laying around. I do however have 1/2 of an acorn squash left over from dinner a couple of nights ago. So, I was off on an experiment this morning to make acorn squash french toast. I didn't listen to whatever their recipe was, so I just used some common sense and made up my own. Here is what I came up with:

1 cup acorn squash cooked and blended in the blender
4 eggs (or 4 whites and 2 whole eggs)
3/4 cup milk
1 TB cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp clove
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 loaf bread

Mix the squash, eggs, and milk together until blended nicely. I like to use a pie pan for my french toast mixens. It's wide enough to dip the bread but deep enough to hold all the liquids in. Add spices and mix in. Dip each slice of bread in the mixture making sure to flip over to coat both sides. Cook in a heavy skillet on med. heat flipping each side over when cooked thoroughly.

This recipe made 10 large pieces of french toast.

The breakdown
How much did this recipe cost me to make?

Acorn squash. This came out of the garden, so this was free!

Spices. I buy my spices in bulk at a cost of $4/1b of spice. At that price, the spices cost about $0.10

Milk at my favorite grocery store is around $1.75/gallon right now. However, this week we decided to buy raw milk from a friend for $3/gallon. It's a little more expensive, but is easier to digest and is much better for you than pasteurized milk. Milk cost $0.14

Eggs. We decided a while back to raise our own egg laying hens so that we would always have a supply of healthy eggs at home. Cost $0

Bread. I have been making my own whole wheat bread for years now. The stuff they call "whole wheat" at the grocery store has several problems with it. 1)it is usually not really whole wheat bread. It's white bread with a little wheat and some chemical coloring. 2) It's expensive. Whole wheat bread can cost up to $5/loaf! 3) It just tastes bad. I wanted my family to eat bread that was healthy without costing a fortune that actually tasted good, so I learned to make it myself. Cost for one loaf: around $0.35

Total cost for this healthy meal? $0.59

So, what makes this meal healthy?
Acorn squash is high in vitamins A, C, and iron. It is low in calories and fat free. Eggs are a great source of protein and only 80 calories each. If you use mostly egg whites, it's also low fat. The homemade wheat bread that was used has no artificial preservatives and is high in fiber (and great tasting, too).