Christmas Strata

Inspired by the movie, “The Family Stone,” but fearful the men would turn up their noses at the idea, I proposed a Christmas Strata for our Hickory Hill breakfast menu. Amber, Sunny, and Susi all said, “Let’s go for it.” After all, Doug hates eggs anyway. Last year, even Kevin pointed out that it’s really a glorified sausage egg casserole with bread in it. And it’s true; you could exchange the cheese for whatever cheese you want. You could leave out onions and peppers on half of it like we’ll do for Kevin this year. He wanted to try it explaining, “I like onions and peppers; they just don’t like me.” The great thing about Strata vs. the Scrambled Eggs is that I always spot Amber digging through the little fridge for the leftovers the next morning. The leftover scrambled eggs make like Christmas and go to Lucy, Jack, and Camden - the dogs. And I’ve done a TexMex variation substituting the red pepper and Italian cheese blend with green chilés and a Mexican cheese blend.

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cups milk

1/2 lb breakfast sausage

1/2 white or yellow onion

1/2 red pepper (roasted or raw)

4 sliced stale or dried out bread

1 cup of Italian six - cheese blend

Salt and pepper

~ Beat eggs and milk till frothy and increased in volume. (This is an important step.)

~ Meanwhile sauté sausage with onion and red pepper (if raw).

~ Butter 9x12 Pyrex dish and place stale bread on the bottom.

~ Cover with cooked sausage, onion, and peppers (add peppers now if roasted).

~ Sprinkle half of cheese over sausage, onion, and peppers.

~ Pour over eggs mixture which should be foamy.

~ Sprinkle remaining cheese.

~ Cover in refrigerator overnight.

~ Bake at 350º for 45 minutes.