Strawberry Stuffed French Toast

I saw this mentioned on A cookie a day... a long time ago. I had planned to make it for the hubs for Father's Day, but then ended up being away on business for Father's Day. I finally got around to making it for Valentine's Day. I could only find a baguette type loaf of French bread, which was totally unsuitable for this! What I could do with it was good and tasty, but it would have been so much better with a larger slice of bread. Maybe next time, I'll make the bread fresh too in the bread machine and see how that comes out (haha, who am I kidding??).

Anyway, this was really good. I just realized, looking at the recipe, that I completely forgot to add sugar, and it was still really tasty. What we had was plenty for the two us, so next time I will probably make no more than half--maybe even bring it down to 1/4 (although who knows how much filling I will use when I have a normal sized slice of bread).

Definite keeper!!

1 (1 pound) loaf sourdough or French bread
1 (8 ounce) package light cream cheese, softened
2 tablesppons sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla extract, divided
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1-1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 cup chopped strawberries
*powdered sugar and real maple syrup to finish
Mix the cream cheese, sugar, 1 tsp vanilla and strawberries together in a bowl, set aside. Slice the bread on a slant, giving each side of the slice a nice surface area. Make a slit in each slice of bread through the crust to form a pocket. Place the cream cheese in a plastic or piping bag and pipe about 2 tbsp of the mixture in each slice of bread.
In a small bowl, beat together eggs,1 tsp vanilla, milk, cinnamon and nutmeg
Melt butter in a griddle or frying pan over medium-low heat. Briefly dip the bread slices in the egg mixture and place on the griddle. Brown on both sides and serve warm with sliced strawberries, powdered sugar and maple syrup