Strata

Most people are familiar with the word quiche. Maybe as a joke, cause real men don’t eat it. Or as a brunch staple. How can you have brunch with out the classic Quiche Lorraine. Of course I always think of the B-52s when I hear the word but that is neither here nor there.

Similar cooking traditions proliferate between different cultures. Strata is one of those traditions that I learned years ago. It tends to go by different names but I learned strata so that is the one I stick with. Essentially, this is an egg casserole. It is a way of stretching your breakfast ingredients to cover a larger number of people.

To clear up the confusion, strata and quiche are very similar items. Quiche has a crust where strata (the way I learned it) does not. These casseroles are a great way to clean stuff out of your fridge. Because cooking anything in eggs makes it tasty!

At my house I have 5 adults to feed at any given time. Dishes like this are a great way to make sure everyone gets fed.

Ingredients:

1 medium onion
1 carrot
1/2 green pepper
1 package cooked bacon
1 clove garlic
12 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 tomato diced
cheese to top
2 cups medium dice bread (I used a ciabatta roll and a couple pieces of wheat bread)

Method:

Preheat oven to 350. Medium dice the carrot, pepper, and onion, then sauté with chopped garlic till tender. Beat eggs and milk till yolks are mixed thoroughly. Layer the bread, veggies, chopped bacon into cooking pan. The final layer is the tomato. Pour egg mixture into pan ensuring that it spreads through out the pan.

Cook for 45 to 50 minutes. Add Cheese to cover the top and cook for an additional 10 minutes or until the cheese is melty
For some reason, I prefer to eat this with ketchup and sriracha. Something about the extra kick, really makes this work for me.

We should eat

This works great with potatoes instead of the bread too. You can either use left over bakers or chop up some raw potatoes and let them cook with the eggs.

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