sausage strata

I am often not excited about cooking. I'm usually pretty excited about eating, however. :)

I like making strata a couple times a year when I have to take a breakfast somewhere for something.  It is good, easy-to-make peasant food. (That is always some of my favorite food to make.) If you are not familiar with strata, it's a breakfast casserole made of layers (strata) of bread, cheese, eggs, milk, and optional ingredients such as a meat (sausage or chicken or ham, usually), maybe a veg (broccoli, onions, tomatoes) and some spices (strata usually calls for mustard, either dry or Dijon). 

You leave it overnight to soak in the fridge once you assemble it, so that the egg/milk mixture gets all gushy down into the bread, then you bake it in the morning.  So it's great if you have to take breakfast somewhere.  Which I did, this morning. So last night I made a strata, and this morning I baked it.  

Here is a basic recipe for a sausage strata, but you can see that you could really do this on the fly yourself with no instruction whatsoever, and substitute different ingredients. :)  

Brown a pound of sausage and drain/paper towel off the excess fat. (I used pork sausage, but you could use any sausage that you like.)

While that's happening, butter a 9x13" pan, and then add a layer of day-old (or older) bread. My favorite bread to use for this is French bread, but I just used Oroweat 7-Grain here, and it's fine. Cut it into cubes. (Include the crusts!) You'll need about 4.5 cups. (I'm sorry about these photos. It was last night, and my kitchen has those pot lights that cast eerie shadows.)

Then add a layer of cheese. I used two cups of sharp cheddar.

Then mix 10 eggs (slightly beaten) and 1 quart of whole milk together.  Now add seasoning to this egg/milk mixture: I added one teaspoon of dry mustard, 1 teaspoon of salt, some pepper, and 1/4 teaspoon of onion powder. (I didn't have an onion to saute last night, but that would be even better.)  

Now just pour the egg/milk mixture over the bread and cheese, and top it with the browned sausage.  Cover it up and stick it in the fridge overnight to soak, and in the morning bake it at 325 for an hour.  Here it is assembled but uncooked:

I am sorry there is no photo of the finished product. I grabbed it out of the oven, rushed out the door this morning, and forgot to take a picture.  Just imagine the "before" pic with melted cheese.

Do you have any good strata recipes/suggestions? Feel free to share them with us if you do.