Strata is also known as breakfast casserole, but I can’t imagine myself eating this for breakfast. This should be an all-day breakfast thing. This strata is made with two leftover ingredients. One being the theme ingredient of course and the other is the meatloaf I made. We couldn’t finish it so I just stuff it into the dish and it came out beautiful! There really isn’t a recipe to strata. It’s a very forgiving dish. A hodge podge of ingredients and leftovers but, oh my does it look so delish coming out of the oven.
Use anything for strata. You can even go all-vege or all-fruit only. Most recipes ask you to leave the mixture soaking overnight, but this is for convenience sake when you don’t have time to cook the next day. I find that even if you leave the bread soaking for say…an hour (give or take) before, it still tastes as good. The important thing to remember is that the bread has to soak up all that egg-y goodness so you won’t have dry spots here and there.
I used leftover meatloaf, bacon, broccoli, peppers and some cooked onions for my strata, I won’t give you a recipe on the filling…I leave that to your vast imagination but I will give you the key ingredients to the liquid mix. A filling one-dish meal that’s enough to feed a whole family.
STRATA RECIPE
Ingredients;
Stale bread, sliced or torn (I used French Baguette here, but any bread is fine)
Grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Liquid mix;
5 eggs (for family-sized portion)
400 ml milk (more or less)
200 ml cream
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
Worcestershire Sauce
A pinch of nutmeg
Black Pepper (lots)
Salt
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
Steps;
1. With your torn/ sliced pieces of stale bread, just spread it all over the baking dish. Have maybe half the dish quantity of bread.
2. Mix all the ingredients for the liquid together. Pour it all over the bread making sure you get every piece and every empty space.
3. Let it soak for an hour so.
4. Cut up your leftover meats and stick it in between the soggy bread. If you don’t have leftover meat, I suggest you pre-cook your meat first.
5. Arrange the vegetables accordingly.
6. Pre-heat your oven to 200 degrees Celcius. Bake for 30 – 45 mins till the bread looks less soggy but still tender.
7. Garnish with more grated cheese on top. Let it cool slightly before cutting in to it.
Enjoy!
