A casserole for leftovers: strata

My mom makes a brunch “quiche” that follows the same basic strata technique here: lay out slices of bread, top with the filling, top with the rest of the bread slices, pour an eggy mixture over top and let it sit overnight before baking. Hers is topped with crushed corn flakes that have been mixed with melted butter. I love that crunchy topping, but I didn’t have any corn flakes in the house to add to this experiment with leftovers. Also, the point of this experiment was to make a dish kind of like mom’s quiche that was lower in fat and in meat (the original has ham-and-cheese filling), so no buttery topping.

The experimental recipe

Layers:

8 slices bread (I used oat bran bread I had in the freezer)

1 small onion, diced

1 tsp oil or butter

leftover cooked spicy Italian loose sausage, probably was about ½ of the original pound of sausage

3 dried sage leaves, crushed

6 oz frozen broccoli

8 oz fresh mushrooms, sliced

½ Tbsp olive oil

½ Tbsp butter

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese (forget lactose intolerance for a minute -- the cheese was on sale)

Grease an 8X8 baking dish. Cover the bottom with 4 slices of bread. Saute the onion in 1 tsp oil or butter and spread over the bread. Cover with sausage, sprinkle with sage. Cover with broccoli. Saute mushrooms in ½ Tbsp olive oil and ½ Tbsp butter and spread over broccoli. Cover with cheese and the other 4 slices of bread. Press down if the bread is above the top of the pan.

Egg mixture:

1 cup egg whites

a squirt of mustard (I don’t keep ordinary yellow mustard around – the mustards on hand were spicy brown or deli brown, but my usual choice would have been Dijon)

1 cup unsweetened soy milk (a little nod to the lactose intolerance)

½ tsp turmeric

Whisk all together and pour over the strata, soaking all the bread slices.

Cover the baking dish in aluminum foil and refrigerate overnight.

The next morning, preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. If, like me, you are baking the strata straight out of the fridge instead of letting it warm up to room temperature, bake covered 25 minutes and uncovered 20 to 25 minutes until bread is browning and filling is bubbly. Let stand five minutes before serving.

Observations

My first thought on eating my first bite was “Whoa! Too much turmeric!” I wasn’t supposed to be able to pick out the turmeric taste so easily. It was supposed to be just for yellow color. That turmeric amount will have to be closer to 1/8 tsp next time. 

“Should I have added salt and pepper to the egg mixture?” I asked myself as I put the baking pan in the fridge before going to bed. When I ate the strata the next day, I found that the sausage and cheese had added enough salty and spicy flavor. I think I would go for some white pepper in the egg mix if I had an all-vegetable filling.

I don’t usually keep whole eggs in the house because the yolks are one of the many items that are not kind to my over-sensitive stomach and guts. I often use the Ener-G powdered egg substitute or substitute two egg whites for each whole egg in a recipe. In general, this dish was not good for me because of the pork sausage, eggs and cheese. Next time, I’d go for an egg substitute instead of any kind of real egg product, and my filling would not be meaty, so that the only tummy-unfriendly item would be the cheese. After this dish and a few egg-white/Egg Beaters omelettes, I’ve learned the lesson that in a dish that is mostly eggy, I just can’t tolerate the eggs. 

The reheated leftovers of this dish were just as good as the fresh-from-the-oven strata lunch.