Saturday, August 30, 2008

Roasted Vegetable Breakfast Strata

I've been practicing breakfast casseroles this week in preparation for the 'Welcome Breakfast' at Dokime on Tuesday. I'm planning to record the event as a 'Virtuous Meal', but in the meantime, here's a recipe I made up myself. I was very happy with the results and so was Abe - he ate 3 helpings. Note that the picture was taken with our new camera.

Roasted Vegetable Breakfast Strata
1 lb roasted vegetables (see below)
1 lb hot Italian turkey sausage
6 hefty slices of sourdough
1/4 c butter, softened
2 T olive oil (in addition to the oil used to roast the vegetables)
8 eggs
1 cup feta
2 cups milk

1 lb vegetables amounted to:
7 stubby ears of corn, husked and rinsed
1/4 medium zuke, cut into 3/4 inch chunks
1/2 eggplant, cut into 3/4 inch chunks
10 gloves garlic, peeled
1 mediuiml red onion, halved and thickly sliced
12 small plum tomatoes, sliced in half

Preheat the oven to 425 (conventional). Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper (spray the sheet with Pam first so the paper adheres). Put all the vegetables except the tomatoes on the sheet. Pour on 2 T olive oil. Sprinkle with sale and pepper. Move around with a wooden spoon to distribute the oil. Put in the oven for 45 minutes, stirring a couple times.

Move the vegetables aside to clear a place on the parchment for the tomatoes. Place them face down and return sheet to the oven for 15 more minutes.

Meanwhile, brown the sausage.

Take the veggies from the oven to cool. Reset the oven to 450/425 convect. Seperate the garlic from the rest of the vegetables and put a couple cloves in with the butter. Add the olive oil and mix into a paste. Spread on the bread slices and cut the bread into cubes.

Remove the corn kernels from the cobs and skin and chop the tomatoes. Add all the vegetables to the sausage and mix it all together.

Spray a 9x13 glass baking dish with Pam and lay down half the bread cubes. Top this with 2/3 of the sausage mixture. Top this with 1/2 cup feta. Repeat with the remaining bread cubes, sausage and feta. Press down on the the layers with your hand and even out the top.

Mix the egg and milk with a hand mixer in a large mixing bowl. Pour carefully over the layers. Put on the middle rack on the oven. Bake 45 minutes.

As the picture shows, the top of the strata turned pretty black. This was the eggplant skin. Didn't look good but tasted fine. I might consider covering the strata loosely with foil for the last 10 minutes or so, the next time I make this.

1 comment:

Lorraine said...

This looks yummy, minus the sausage. Not that I'm against meat in general, but sausage and I don't get along, never have.