Brat Strata

We had some extra buns and cabbage to use up recently, and we thought, "we oughta make a strata! What goes good with buns? Hamburgers, hot dogs...brats!"  Having already done a hamburger-type strata, and having more of a hankering for brats than hot dogs, we forged ahead with a brat-themed strata. 

We started by sautéing a pound of ground venison (thanks Uncle Pete!) with a couple chopped, medium-size onions. For seasoning, we kind of winged it with whatever we had in the cupboard (and it wasn't bad by any means), but next time we'll probably follow expert recommendations a little closer.  One thing that worked well, though, was to season the meat and onions extra heavy so we didn't have to add much to the rest of the dish.  Similarly, we wanted sauerkraut, but had only cabbage and didn't want to wait several weeks to eat supper.  So, we made up a sort of 'instant sauerkraut' recipe that was passable, but something like this or this might have made Katie's taste buds a little happier.

We layered the sliced buns, meat/onion mix, sauerkraut, and some sharp cheddar in a 9" x 13" pan, whipped up a mix of six eggs topped up to 3 cups with milk, and poured it over the top.  Into the oven at 350 °F for 50-60 min.  Hey, that does actually smell like a brat!

It goes great with traditional brat condiments--mustard and, if you're a heathen American, ketchup.  Pretty good!

The recipe:
1-1.5 lb. ground venison
2 medium onions, chopped
1 qt sauerkraut
Brat seasonings to taste, then doubled
Sliced bread or buns to make two layers in a 9" x 13" pan
1 lb shredded cheese (we used cheddar)

6 eggs
Enough milk to top up eggs to 3 cups total

Sauté the ground venison and onions in a frying pan over medium heat until meat is browned and onions are translucent, seasoning with favorite brat seasonings.  Layer the bread, browned meat/onions, sauerkraut, and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, and milk. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 50-55 min, until center is lightly set and top is golden brown. Allow to cool and top with favorite brat accoutrements.

Homestead Happiness and Progress for February Week 3

'Twas an eventful time this week on the homestead, bolstered by some nice weather and a couple snowy days. Check out what happened this week at THL!

A seven-egg day!  That means all of our hens are definitely laying.  (We were pretty sure that's been the case since mid-January, but this was the first time we got a horizontal bingo on our egg-tracking chalkboard table.  Vertical bingo has been achieved by our Red Star and New Hampshire Red, who have laid eggs on 21 and 15 consecutive days, respectively (also 25 out of 26 days for Red Star and 23 out of 26 days for New Hampshire).

Monday was a snow day, which we used to make a picnic table.  Happy belated valentine's day Katie!

But by Friday, things had thawed out enough that we could see the feral poppies pushing through the leaves with new growth.  Everything is now covered in snow again, but that's ok!  We know what's underneath.

First try at isolating potato starch.  It works!  It turned out ok, but we want to tweak a few things before we turn it into a full blog post.

A liver-and-onion strata (with kale)!  Delicious, packed full of vitamins, and appearing in our upcoming strata cookbook.

Seed catalogs!  Wherefore lyeth such a slippery slope of inspiration upon our kitchen table?

What fun stuff happened on your homestead this week?

We Heart Strata

This post will be our twelfth monthly strata recipe, which means we're wrapping up our regular series on strata.  (Although such a versatile dish will certainly make a new appearance on the blog from time to time!)  As a fitting exit, we wanted to express our undying love for this quirky bread casserole the best way we know how: by making a heart strata.

We're adapting one of our favorite non-strata casseroles--cheesy potato, venison, and chard--into strata form.  (Hint: it's easy--just add layers of bread!)  Let's get to it!

The layers this time are bread, cubed lean beef heart meat (thanks Grandma!), cubed (blue and red) potatoes, chopped swiss chard, and colby cheese.  In reality, almost any meat and leafy green (other than lettuce) will do, but the unique firmness of heart is a big plus.  We haven't tried fresh leafy greens, but frozen and/or blanched seems to work just fine.  We precooked the taters in the microwave a bit, but in hindsight, that was probably unnecessary.  We cooked the heart in a crockpot until it was tender, then cubed it up.  Katie says, "Jake, you forgot to add the cheese layer before taking this picture!" Jake says, "What? Oh, um, good job Katie!  You passed the noticing test!"

Add a second layer, then pour over the top a well-beaten mixture of six eggs, three cups milk, a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and onion powder, and two teaspoons each of garlic powder, dried oregano, and dried basil.

Cover it up and let the whole thing soak in the fridge for several hours.

Bake it at 350 °F for 50-60 minutes until middle is lightly set and cheese on top is golden brown.

Salsa and sour cream (or plain yogurt) are pretty good condiments, but what it really wants is the tangy heat from a few squirts of vinegar-based hot sauce!  Mmmmmm......

The recipe:
Enough bread for 2-3 layers in a 9" x 13" pan
2 lb heart meat slow-cooked and cubed
3-4 cups cubed potatoes
2-3 cups cooked swiss chard or spinach
3-4 cups shredded cheese (we used colby)

3 cups milk
6 eggs
1 teaspoon each salt, pepper, and onion powder,
2 teaspoons each garlic powder, dried oregano, and dried basil

Layer bread, meat, potatoes, chard, and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan until pan is full (usually two layers each, unless your pan is exceptionally short or tall).  Beat together milk, eggs, and spices, pour over the layers, cover, and soak in fridge for several hours or overnight.  Bake at 350 °F for 50-60 min, until cooked through and toasty brown on top.  Hit with a little hot sauce and enjoy a dish more savory than the herb of that name.

Yuletide Strata

We're nearing the new year, which must mean it's time to close out the 2014 strata campaign with a tasty dessert strata tot help use up leftovers from holiday baking.  Coincidentally, this strata is also dressed like Santa (or Bucky Badger).  Let's get to it!

In the usual strata fashion, we made layers, but without the normal meat or vegetable components.  Here are the layers this time around: bread (as usual), whole cranberries, white chocolate chips, and a mixture of yogurt and cream cheese.  We used about three cups of cranberries and 1.5 cups white chocolate chips per layer.  The yogurt/cream cheese mixture was about 1.5 blocks cream cheese (12 oz) and 2 cups plain yogurt, to which we added about a teaspoon of vanilla extract.  (So, 0.75 blocks cream cheese and 1 cup yogurt per layer.)

There are two layers each of bread-cranberries-chocolate chips-yogurt/cream cheese.  These layers are inundated with an egg mixture, which in this case was sort of like eggnog: six eggs, three cups milk, 1/3 cup sugar, 0.25 teaspoon cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon cardamom.

The whole shebang went in the fridge for several hours to steep.

Then it got baked at 350 °F for 50-60 min until it looked like this. (i.e., sort of a Bucky Badger/toasted marshmallow hybrid, or maybe Santa after coming down the chimney of a lit fireplace.)

We cut the pan into eight servings, one of which looked like this.  Like our berry strata, this one isn't quite as filling as most.  But it makes one heck of a dessert.  Good stuff, Maynard!

The recipe:
6 cups whole fresh cranberries
4 cups white chocolate chips
12 oz cream cheese (1.5 blocks)
2 cups yogurt

6 eggs
3 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cardamom
0.25 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix the yogurt and cream cheese together well.  Layer the bread, cranberries, chocolate chips, and cream cheese/yogurt (chogurt) mixture in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with chogurt, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, milk, sugar, cardamom, and cinnamon. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 50-60 min, until top is golden brown and kitchen smells like toasted marshmallows. No condiments needed, but make sure to get your protein and veggies somewhere else, or your mom will be really mad.

Strata Verde Con Cerdo

Uh oh.  We got busy and missed the deadline for our November strata-of-the-month recipe.  Fortunately, we had a chance to make one this weekend, which means December will have two!  What a lucky month.

We had some salsa in the fridge from our green tomatoes that we've been trying to use up, but we had a lot of green tomatoes.  'Lot' is a technical term meaning 'enough to make more green salsa than you can use.'  Or at least, we thought it was more than we could use until we realized we had a world-class Ohman pork roast in the freezer, a big block of Monterrey jack cheese in the fridge, and were sitting in the heart of a region known for chili verde (often con cerdo).  And that we were overdue for making another strata.

We cooked the pork roast in the crock pot overnight, then shredded it like we were going to make pulled pork sandwiches.  We put half of it in a 9 x 13" pan on a layer of bread, then topped it with about 3 cups green salsa and 6 ounces shredded Monterrey jack cheese.

Then we added a second set of bread-pork-salsa-cheese and poured an egg mixture over the top.  The egg stuff had 6 eggs, 3 cups milk, a teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and onion powder, a quarter teaspoon of cayenne powder, and a tablespoon each of garlic powder and dried rosemary.  (You may have heard the old adage 'where there's smoke, there's fire;' in our house we say, 'where there's pork, there's rosemary.')

Set the whole shebang in the fridge overnight (or at least a few hours) until all the flavors become friends...

...then bake at 350 °F for 50-60 min until the top layer of cheese is brown.

When it cools down, you can eat it!  This is one of our favorite stratas so far.  It made us feel all warm and fuzzy inside, but that may have also been from the cayenne.

What's your favorite way to eat green salsa and pork?  Let us know in the comments section below!

The recipe:
2-3 lbs. pork roast
6 cups green salsa
12 oz. shredded cheese (we used Monterrey jack)

6 eggs
3 cups milk
1 tablespoon each of garlic powder and dried rosemary
1 teaspoon each of salt, pepper, and onion powder
0.25 teaspoon cayenne powder

Cook the pork roast in a crock pot until tender, and shred.  Layer the bread, pork, salsa and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, milk, and remaining seasonings. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 50-60 min, until cheese on top is golden brown and screaming 'eat me!' Sour cream and diced tomatoes are acceptable condiments.

Stuffed French Toast Strata

A question: what is the best part of coming home to one's parents' house after being away for a while? An answer: mom's cooking!  Another question: what is an extra special treat during such visits, even among mom's cooking? Another answer: stuffed french toast! 

Stuffed french toast is pretty easy to make, just like regular french toast.  We've normally had it with french bread sliced double-thick and sliced halfway through in the middle of each double-thick slice (see here for an example)--but it works with regular bread, too, and we've even made the sausage-and-swiss style from the link above as just a french toast-grilled-cheese sandwich.  But then we thought, "wouldn't it also be great in a strata?" And we're happy to report that it is, indeed, great in a strata.

Start by browning up some ground meat to make some breakfast sausage.  For 1 lb ground venison, we seasoned it with about a half-teaspoon each of salt, and pepper, and one teaspoon each of garlic powder, caraway seeds, and ground sage.

When the meat is cooked through and tastes like the type of breakfast sausage you want, make layers like the picture shows, in a 9 x 13" pan.  A couple of differences between this strata and our other recipes: this one doesn't have vegetables in it, so you'll have to get them in a side dish.  (Don't skip them!  Remember, this is mom's meal plan we're emulating.)  Or maybe make an omelet to go with it or something.  Also, we're not normally picky about what kind of cheese we use in the strata, but this one's gotta have Swiss cheese.

Add a second set of bread-meat-cheese layers, then pour a mixture of six eggs, three cups milk, and one teaspoon each of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning (beaten together) over it.  The seasonings in the egg mixture could also be more traditional french toast spices, like vanilla and cinnamon, but we decided to match the sausage flavor instead.  Doesn't matter, we'll still eat it with syrup like Buddy the Elf.

Set it in the fridge to chill out for a while.

Then bake at 350 °F for 50-55 min until it looks something like this.

Look at those layers! Time for the syrup! Good stuff, Maynard.  House rules: when an entree is topped with real maple syrup, the plate must be licked clean.  No exceptions!

What do you stuff your french toast with?  Let us know in the comments section below!


The recipe:
~1 lb ground venison
 0.5 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
1 teaspoon each of garlic powder, caraway seed, and ground sage

10 slices of bread (at least)
1 lb shredded Swiss cheese

6 eggs
3 cups milk
1 teaspoon each of garlic powder, and Italian seasoning, salt and pepper

Brown the ground venison in a frying pan over medium heat, seasoning with garlic powder, caraway, sage, salt and pepper to taste (suggestions above).  The amount of ground meat can be adjusted, too--1 lb gives a two scant layers in the strata, two lbs. makes a very meaty strata.  Layer the bread, browned meat, and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, milk, and remaining seasonings. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 50-55 min. Allow to cool and smother with real maple syrup.  Remember to lick the plate afterward.

Cheeseburger Strata

Ok, kids, gather 'round.  We've got a pretty good strata recipe for you this month.  It's partly inspired by end-of-summer hamburger cravings and partly by a staple dish at Katie's family's Thanksgiving-time celebration called, appropriately, 'beef and pickles.'  We don't have much beef around here, but we do have some ground venison and a big jar of pickles, so let's get to it!

We'll pick up this story near the end of the first set of layers, where we've got bread on the bottom, then a layer of about 2/3 lb. browned ground venny, then half a sliced onion and some pickle slices.  We're ashamed to admit they're not our own pickles, but our cukes this year petered out before peter piper could pick and pickle them.  So we got a 32 oz. jar of the bread and butter pickles from the grocery store; dills would probably work, too.  It worked out nicely to have half a jar per layer, with a few leftover for snacking.  Don't forget!  A layer of cheese goes on top of the pickles.

Repeat the bread-meat-onions-pickles-cheese layers, then pour on a mix of six eggs, three cups milk, a teaspoon each of salt and pepper, a tablespoon each of onion and garlic powders and rosemary, and five or six squirts of Worcestershire sauce, if you enjoy that sort of thing on a hamburger.

Set it in the fridge for a few hours...

Then bake at 350 °F for 50-55 min until the onion rings make tiny delicious crop circles on the upper cheese layer.

That would probably taste pretty good with some fruit salad and a glass of crab apple-ade!  The strata can be topped with the desired hamburger toppings: ketchup, mustard, sauerkraut, sour cream, bacon, more cheese, etc.  Katie says, "pretty tasty!"

What are your favorite hamburger seasonings, toppings, and side dishes?  Let us know in the comments section below!


The recipe:
~1.5 lbs. ground venison
1 large onion, sliced
32 oz. jar of sliced pickles
1 tablespoon each garlic powder, onion powder,
1 teaspoon each salt, pepper,
10 slices of bread (at least)
1 lb shredded cheese (we used colby-jack and cheddar)

6 eggs
3 cups milk
1 tablespoon each of garlic powder, onion powder, and dried rosemary
1 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
5-6 squirts of Worcestershire sauce

Brown the ground venison in a frying pan over medium heat, seasoning with garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper to taste (suggestions above).  The amount of ground meat can be adjusted, too--1 lb gives a two scant layers in the strata, two lbs. makes a very meaty strata.  Layer the bread, browned meat, onion slices, pickles (drained), and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, milk, and remaining seasonings. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 50-55 min, until senses of sight and smell register 'awesome.' Allow to cool and top with favorite hamburger accoutrements.

Stratatouille

One of our favorite things about this time of year is the abundance of fresh vegetables coming in from the garden (or farmer's market, depending on the circumstances).  And one of our favorite things to do with those vegetables (because it's easy and delicious) is roast them into a ratatouille.  Chop 'em up, slather 'em with olive oil and some seasonings, throw 'em on a cookie sheet, and bake until they're done.  (We took a break from our theme of outdoor cooking for this recipe).  Makes the house smell tasty. Probably makes the inside of our stomachs smell tasty, too, which we're sure our gut microbes appreciate. 

Then we had a thought: all those vegetables would probably also be awesome in a strata.  Hence was born the concept of the ratatouille strata, or the stratatouille, as this month's strata incarnation.

We'll pick this story up at the point where the ratatouille is already made, since Katie made it before the camera was ready.  (A visual approximation of Katie making ratatouille is the cartoon tasmanian devil in tornado phase, moving around the kitchen chopping veggies.  Watch out!  She has a sharp knife!)  To make the ratatouille, we used 2.5 zucchinis, 2 summer squashes, 2 eggplants, 2 green peppers, 1 large onion, and 5 roma tomatoes.  The zucchinis, squashes and tomatoes made about 3 cups each when chopped, the eggplants were around 4 cups, the green peppers and onion around one cup each.  Mixed with olive oil, garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and rosemary.  We also added some fresh chives, oregano, and basil.  The meat in this incarnation is about 2 cups of shredded chicken, seasoned to taste with garlic powder, salt, pepper, and Italian seasoninng. (1 teaspoon each for the garlic powder and Italian seasoning, and half a teaspoon each for the salt and pepper).  The cheese is a 50/50 mix of colby jack and monterrey jack.   The bread is whatever was available.  Layer them as shown in the picture: bread-vegetables-meat-cheese.  Make sure to only use half of each in the first set of layers...

...then lather, rinse, repeat.

Time for the egg mixture!  3 cups milk, 6 eggs, 2 teaspoons each garlic powder, rosemary, and thyme; half teaspoon each salt and pepper; 5 or 6 squirts of hot sauce. Pour it over the egg mixture, making absolutely sure not to spill any into a dryer with a clean load of clothes or into the nether regions of the dryer.

Into the fridge it goes to let all those wild flavors settle for a few hours.  Works best if set between apples and yogurt.

Then bake at 360 °F for 50-60 minutes until golden brown and whole house smells delicious.

Cut into big pieces to save the inconvenience of having to go for seconds.  That's a lot of veggies!  This is one of our favorite strata recipes so far.

 What do you do with all your incoming vegetables this time of year?  Have you ever put them into a casserole like this?  Let us know in the comments section below!


 The recipe:

3 cups each chopped zucchini, chopped summer squash, and chopped tomatoes
4 cups chopped eggplant
1 cup each chopped green pepper and onion
0.25 cups olive oil
1 teaspoon each garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and dried rosemary
2 tablespoons each fresh oregano, basil, and chives

10 slices of bread (at least)
1 lb shredded cheese (we used colby-jack and monterrey jack)

2 cups cooked, shredded chicken, seasoned to taste with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and Italian seasoning

6 eggs
3 cups milk
2 teaspoons each of garlic powder, thyme, and rosemary
0.5 teaspoon each of salt and pepper
5-6 squirts of your favorite hot sauce

Mix the chopped vegetables with the olive oil and first set of seasonings to coat, roast at 350 °F until the vegetables are soft, but not mushy.  Layer the bread, roasted veggies, chicken, and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese, aiming for two layers each. Beat together eggs, milk, and remaining seasonings. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 350 °F for 45-55 min, until senses of sight and smell register 'awesome.' Allow to cool and cut into serving sizes proportionate to 'firsts' and 'seconds' combined.

Buffalo Strata

Recently, Katie's been making a recipe for buffalo cauliflower to take to potlucks, and it's pretty good.  If she drives to the potluck (i.e., Jake is in the passenger seat keeping the crock pot from tipping over), about half makes it there.  None ever makes it home.

For the last couple weeks, we've had chicken on our minds.  We put almost 100 lbs in the freezer (details coming soon), and we've been thinking about what we can do to clear out a little space.  (We had to eat all the ice cream that was in there to make room for the chicken.  Now we've got to eat some chicken to make room for more ice cream.  It's a delicious cycle.)

Then, we remembered that we hadn't posted a strata recipe for July yet!  Keen observers will notice three things at this point: 1. a typical strata recipe for us includes at least one type of meat and one type of vegetable, 2. both chicken and cauliflower are excellent when seasoned with a little Essence de Buffalo, and 3. chicken and cauliflower in a buffalo-flavored strata would be awesome!  Ok, let's get to it.

This is what our freezer looks like right now.  Ice cubes, schnitzelbank, chicken breasts, chicken drumsticks, pulled chicken, whole pioneer chickens for roasting, and a few cc's of air.  There's more chicken in the door, and even more chicken in the freezer in the garage.

We started with a bag of pulled chicken, a little over 1 lb.  It came directly out of the freezer, where we used it as a sculpture titled, 'inside of a ziploc bag.'  We put it in a bowl with 4 Tablespoons butter and 0.25 c hot sauce, but in the future, we'll probably just make a big batch of buffalo sauce (we like 50% butter, 50% hot sauce) beforehand and use half a cup of it here.  This whole mix went in the microwave until the butter was melted and the chicken had thawed.

We cut one head of cauliflower up into pieces (it weighed about 2.7 lbs), and added another half cup of buffalo sauce in the form of 4 Tablespoons butter and 0.25 cup hot sauce.  This went in the microwave until the cauliflower was cooked.  After cooking, both the chicken and the cauliflower are buffalo flavored, but it's a little more subtle than we were hoping for.  We could increase the sauce-to-chicken (or cauliflower) ratio, or add extra sauce to the finished product.

We made the layers in a 9" x 13" pan as usual: bread, cauliflower, chicken, cheese.

Then more bread, cauliflower, chicken, and cheese.

And then the egg mixture.  It's normally 3 cups milk, 6 eggs, and a bunch of seasonings.  We replaced half a cup of milk with more buffalo sauce, but the milk dilutes the buffalo flavor quite a bit.  We'll definitely need some more buffalo sauce to pour over the finished product.  The seasonings we added were 0.5 teaspoon each of salt, black pepper, and onion powder, and 1 teaspoon garlic powder.  Beat the mixture well and pour into the pan over the bread-cheese-cauliflower-chicken layers.  Set it in the fridge overnight or for several hours to let the buffaloes get accustomed to their new range.

Bake at 375 °F for 50-60 min, until the middle is pretty solid and the top looks toasty brown.

Cut into pieces, and top with appropriate sauces.  As we mentioned above, the seasonings added to the chicken and cauliflower weren't quite as in-your-face as buffalo sauce is meant to be, so we added some extra buffalo flavoring.  Then the buffaloes were really in our face, so we added some feta cheese sauce (blue cheese sauce would also be good).  Mmmmm.  It's like a stampede in your mouth.

What do you do when you have an abundance of chicken?  What else is good with a buffalo sauce?  Let us know in the comments section below!

The recipe:
10 slices of bread (at least)
1 lb shredded cheese (we used Monterrey jack)

1 lb pulled chicken

1 head cauliflower (2.5-3 lbs)
1.5 cups buffalo sauce
0.5 teaspoon each salt, black pepper, and onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
6 eggs
2.5 cups milk

Cook cauliflower and chicken, season with half a cup of buffalo sauce each.  Layer the bread, meat, cauliflower, and cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese. Beat together remaining buffalo sauce, eggs, milk, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, and black pepper. Pour over layers and set in fridge for several hours or overnight. Bake at 375 °F for 50-60 min, until golden brown and delicious-smelling. Serve with additional buffalo sauce and bleu or feta cheese sauce if desired.  Fall into food coma, reflect deeply on the recipe and any improvements that could be made, and post comments on this page.

Berry Strata

It's that wonderful time of year on the homestead, when, if you're lucky enough to have established berry bushes, the berries are coming in as fast as you can pick them (i.e., you are regularly achieving a Berry Modulus of much greater than 1).  If you're also lucky enough to have laying hens, there's a good chance that you are inundated by both berries and eggs.  What to do with such a bountiful harvest?  We humbly suggest this month's strata recipe.

This is a lot like a regular strata, except the meat has turned to fruit, and the shredded hard cheese has turned to chunks of cream cheese.  The bread is the same as usual, making up the bottom layer.  In this iteration, we used a pound of strawberries and about 0.75 pound raspberries, each split into two layers (or strata, if you prefer).  Almost any kind of berry would probably work, so if you've got cherries, apricots, peaches, or whatever else coming ripe, toss those in, too!

A regular 9" x 13" pan will probably fit two layers each of bread and cream cheese/berries.  This is going to be good!  We seriously considered calling this month's version PolaWyle Strata, after the authors of the famous Christmas song The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, but decided to be less creative at the last minute.

Once the layers have been formed, it's time to fill in the cracks.  Six eggs, three cups milk, a teaspoon or so of vanilla extract, and a few pinches each of salt, cinnamon, and cardamom (if you've got it).  Beat the liquidy part well and pour over the solids.

Then everything has to hang out in the fridge for a few hours and get to know each other.  Hi there, I'm cardamom.  One of the egg yolks was saying we should work together on this project since we bring complementary skill sets to the table. Nice to meet you!  I'm strawberry and I completely agree.

Once everything has mingled, it gets baked at 375 °F for 50-60 minutes.  Are those graham cracker chunks on top?  Yes, those are graham cracker chunks on the top.  They replace the cornflakes in the regular strata recipe.

This one came out a little messier than our other versions, but the layers are still apparent to the trained eye.  As a meal, it's kind of like a french toast casserole, and it would go well with sausage or bacon. (Ok, everything goes well with bacon, but this definitely would, too).  The berries add quire a bit of sweetness on their own, but if you're feeling really naughty, you can eat it with maple syrup.  We found this strata a little less filling than our other versions, so definitely consider serving with a proteinaceous side dish.

The recipe:
10 slices of bread (at least)
16 oz. cream cheese, cut into cubes
2 lbs berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cherries, peaches, etc. in any combination)
6 eggs
3 cups milk
0.25 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon each cinnamon and cardamom
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1.5 cups graham cracker chunks, lightly crushed

Layer the bread, berries and cream cheese in a 9" x 13" pan, starting with bread and ending with cheese.  Beat together eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, cardamom and salt.  Pour over mixture and set in fridge for at least 12 hours, preferably overnight.  Spread graham cracker chunks over top of the bread-berry-cream cheese layers.  Bake at 375 °F for 50-60 min, until cream cheese chunks look a little like toasted marshmallows and center begins to set up.

What do you do with your eggs and berries this time of year?  Have you made a similar strata recipe before?  Let us know in the comments section below!