Add sweet, spicy flavor of chai to French toast

Make the grocery store part of your quick-fix pantry.

Author and cooking teacher Andrew Schloss has created more than 300 recipes that rely on high-quality, prepared ingredients from the store to help cooks get dinner on the table fast.

In “Homemade in a Hurry,” Schloss includes a handy pantry list that covers the basics for his redefinition of “homemade.” Keep ingredients such as tomato bruschetta, coconut milk, curry sauce, canned fire-roasted tomatoes, imported Parmesan cheese on hand, and add a few fresh ingredients for a fast, easy meal.

The book covers everything from hors d’oeuvres to dessert, with chapters on salads, pasta and sauce, vegetarian meals and slow cookers.

Here’s a recipe from the book for Chai French Toast.

Chai French Toast

“Chai is a sweetened tea latte infused with honey and spices. Made from scratch, it is a sweet and pungent beverage, but not strong enough to lend its flavor to a recipe. However the ready availability of chai concentrate changes all that. A packaged beverage designed to mix with milk and serve warm or chilled, it is perfect for flavoring a sorbet, a cake or in this case French toast,” Schloss wrote.

1 box (32 ounces) chai tea latte concentrate, such as Oregon chai

1 cup half and half, cream or milk

3 eggs, large or extra large

Pinch of salt

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

8 slices premium bread, such as challah

Pour 2 1/2 cups of the chai into a small saucepan and boil for about 10 minutes, until it has reduced to a syrup, about 3/4 cup.

Keep warm.

Mix the remaining 1 1/2 cups chai, the half and half, eggs and salt in a shallow bowl. Heat the butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Meanwhile, dip each slice of bread in the egg mixture and moisten thoroughly. Add to the skillet and brown on both sides. You will need to dip and cook the French toast in batches; keep the cooked pieces warm in a low oven while you prepare the rest. Serve 2 slices per person, topped with some of the chai syrup.

Yield: 4 servings

Approximate nutrition per serving: Unable to calculate.