Gale Gand's Brunch!

Breakfast food has never been big with me, and apparently the feeling is shared by many, because when Gourmet magazine tried to recommend a breakfast cookbook for the Cookbook Club, they ended up falling back on Marion Cunningham's "Breakfast Book", which was published in 1987. That is a long dry spell. Gale Gand's Brunch! is a welcome addition to a small oeuvre of books on the first meal of the day, and has a large number of savory foods to consider serving. Here is an adapted recipe from the book:

Strata Recipe
5 cups of cubed French bread (with crust)
2 c. grated cheese (gruyere and fontina are my favorites, but cheddar, parmesan and even a blooming soft rind cheese like brie cut into chunks works well)
10 large eggs
4 c. milk
1 teaspoon dry mustard
1 teaspoon salt
2 c. cooked vegetables (asparagus, onions, and mushrooms are my favorites)
1 c. diced or crumbled meat (optional--can add ham, bacon, sausage, grilled chicken)

Butter a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Put the bread cubes in the dish and sprinkle them with the cheese. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, mustard, and salt. Pour the egg mixture over the bread cubes. Sprinkle the filling ingredients over the egg mixture and fold them in gently. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours and up to 24 hours. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and bake for 60 minutes, until the mixture has puffed up slightly and is golden brown on top. Let cool for 5 minutes before serving.

I highly recommend this cookbook. The only breakfast food it is lean on recipes for is muffins, and there are plenty of good recipes available for those. The above recipe is one of only two strata recipes I have found in cookbooks (the other is in Deborah Madison's 'Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone", which is a cookbook I would choose if I could only have 3 cookbooks). The photographs in the book are inspirational--I have included a few, but they are throughout the book. I am a big fan of having a picture of what the food is supposed to look like when you have sucessfully made it and an idea of how you might attractively serve it.