Out of this Stratasphere!

Yesterday I blogged about the glorious spread that we enjoyed on Easter. In that post, I mentioned that I would be highlighting different dishes that I made in their own dedicated posts. Today I will share the recipe for the delectable Strata that I made. This recipe is loosely based on a recipe in Tosca Reno’s Eat Clean Cookbook.

Strata is an exquisite, time saving Brunch main course that is sure to impress your guests. All of the prep work is done the day before your event and in the morning you simply turn on the oven and the strata bakes for 60 minutes. That’s it! Sooooo easy!!!

I started out by making pork-apple breakfast sausage that was also based on one of Tosca Reno’s recipes from her new Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook 2. I subbed lean ground pork for ground turkey breast in my version of the recipe, but other than that I stayed close to the original recipe.

While the sausage cooked, I washed and cut up my veggies: asparagus, mushrooms and onion. Do not place mushrooms under running water, simply dab them with a paper towel, otherwise they will absorb the water become rubbery.

Strata is kind of like making a breakfast lasagna… but much easier. Once you have all of your ingredients prepped it’s simple assembly: sprouted grain bread, veggies, goat cheese, repeat.

The trickiest part is ensuring that you get every nook and cranny filled with bread. Notice the little pieces that I cut and shoved into every open space…

Assembly complete!

Usually at this point you would add the wet ingredients and let the strata soak overnight. However, I did my assembly on Saturday morning. So, I covered my Strata and placed it in the fridge to sit until Saturday night.

When I placed my Strata in the fridge, I jotted down the wet ingredients on a post-it note and stuck it right to the strata. That way when I pulled it out of the fridge later that night to add the wet ingredients, I wouldn’t have to fumble through a cookbook to find the rest of the recipe. It was right there waiting for me. lots.of.time.saved.

I combined the wet ingredients, poured them over the strata, covered it and placed it back in the fridge. Easy peasy!

Sunday morning I pulled the strata out of the fridge, placed it in the COLD oven, set the oven to 350° and set my cooking timer to 1 hour.

I have found that it is best to put a cold dish into a cold oven so that the dish can slowly heat up as the oven preheats. Depending on the baking dish that you use, if you place a cold dish into a hot oven it can shatter or break. No one wants that!

Please note, that you may need to increase the cooking time by a few minutes due to the fact that the oven needs to preheat and your strata is cold. Another option would be to let the dish sit at room temperature for 20 minutes and then place the room temperature dish into a preheated oven.

Out of this Stratasphere Strata

1 lb pork-apple breakfast sausage, cooked and crumbled
8 oz white mushrooms, sliced
1 lb asparagus, cut into 1.5 inch pieces
1 small yellow onion, diced
1 loaf sprouted grain bread
8 oz goat cheese, crumbled
12 egg whites
4 whole eggs
2 cups almond milk, unsweetened
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp Worcestershire
freshly ground black pepper, to taste
sea salt, to taste
Frank’s hot sauce, to taste

Grease a lasagna pan.

Layer up!

1. Layer 1: Using half of the bread, create an even layer of bread on the bottom of the pan, ensuring to cover every open nook and cranny (see photo above).
2. Layer 2: Spread half of the veggie mixture on top of the bread.
3. Layer 3: Sprinkle half of the crumbled goat cheese over the veggies.
4. Repeat layers 1-3 with remaining ingredients.

In a glass measuring cup, whisk together egg whites, eggs, almond milk, Worcestershire, mustard, pepper, sea salt and Frank’s.

Pour wet ingredients over the layered strata, pausing to allow the wet ingredients to be absorbed by the bread.

Cover and refrigerate overnight.

In the morning, place the cold strata into a cold oven. Set the oven to 350° and let it bake for 60-70 minutes, depending on how quickly your oven heats up. The strata will be puffy, set up and lightly browned when it is finished.

Let the strata rest on the counter for 10 minutes.

Cut into 10 pieces and enjoy!