Make it: Breakfast-y Casserole

My mom calls it a strata. My friend Janet calls it bread pudding. Whatever you call it, it’s a fantastically delish dish for any meal. We often make it for dinner, but it works oh, so well for brunch. Best thing about it: you can use whatever you feel like using, and it will almost certainly taste fab.

Per the afore-mentioned friend Janet, I’ve been saving my unused bread-butts, tossing them in the freezer, and then pulling them out when I’m in the mood for a strata (or when I haven’t had the foresight to plan dinner).

I grab a few butts (heehee), mix some eggs, milk, seasonings and cheese, throw in veggies and/or meat, dump it into a casserole dish, pop it in the oven, and 45 minutes or an hour later, dinner is served.

A simple salad finishes the meal, and we’ve got breakfast covered for a few days.

And, without any further ado, here’s the recipe:

Refrigerator Shelf Strata

(because you toss whatever you need to use in your fridge into this, within reason).

Preheat oven to 350°

Mix:

• 5-6 eggs
• 1 1/2 C milk
• 1/4 tsp each: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, dried basil (or whatever spices you feel like adding)
• 1/2 tsp mustard powder

Add:

• 1 C shredded cheese (I used sharp cheddar)
• 5-6 pieces of bread, cubed
• whatever else you feel like adding. For this meal, I added approx 1C crumbled breakfast chicken sausage, 2 big handfuls fresh spinach leaves, approx 1/2 C oven-dried roma tomatoes from the freezer

Dump:

It all into a 2 or 3-quart casserole dish.

Sprinkle:

More cheese on top.

Bake:

at 350 for 45 minutes – 1 hour. It’s done when it gets all bubbly and browned.