♥♥♥ Happy Valentine’s Day! ♥♥♥
Since my valentine is currently back home in England, I shall spend the day romancing myself and enjoy some quality ‘me’ time. What’s better than cooking up a Sunday brunch to start off my day? 🙂
I basically pulled out whatever ‘interesting’ ingredients I had from the fridge and pantry and decided to make an easy casserole dish with extras for tea and dinner today. Saves time and hassle!
It’s a Sausage and Cheese Strata (‘strata’ simply means ‘layered casserole dish’) that is like a savoury bread pudding. The cherry tomatoes are kept whole as I don’t want too much liquid in the custard and it is also better this way as the tomatoes would pop in the mouth with their sweet juices. I use Taiwan sausages so the dish would look vibrantly red/pink which is also the colour of energy, passion and love. 🙂 Such an apt dish for the occasion. 😉
Sausage and Cheese Strata Recipe
Ingredients (serves 5-6)
300g day-old wholemeal bread, cut into cubes
250g sausage, sliced
200g cherry tomatoes
150g cheddar cheese, grated
6 large eggs
350ml whole milk
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
1. Combine eggs, milk, salt and pepper in a mixing bowl and whisk thoroughly. Set aside.
2. Arrange the bread cubes on the bottom of an oven dish, followed by the sausages, cherry tomatoes and 2/3 of the cheese. Lightly mix everything up with your hands.
3. Pour the egg mixture all over the bread, ensuring that every cube is soaked in it.
4. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Chill in fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight.
5. Remove the oven dish from the fridge and leave at room temperature for at least half hour before baking.
6. Preheat oven to 180 deg C with fan.
7. Insert oven dish into middle shelf of oven and bake for 30-35 minutes till surface is golden brown and crispy.
The bread cubes would soak up all that custard and would be moist but not overly mushy. And of course, that crispy cheese layer on top was a real delightful treat too. A great recipe to make especially when you have stale bread to use up and you can try different combinations of ingredients with whatever you have in the fridge – ham, bacon, cooked chicken meat, pumpkin, etc. Enjoy!
I could go for a slice of that right about now 🙂
This looks so yummy! Making me hungry even though I just had breakfast!