Cheese Souffle, Monterey Fondue or Stratta

I was asked to share the recipe for the "delicious looking cheesy casserole thingy" in my Gravlax post so here we go.

First of all I found the recipe I am about to post(I added sausage) in the James Beard American Cookery cookbook under Cheese Souffle. Which he, rightly so, denies is a souffle. I have made this recipe several times for Christmas breakfast because it is so hands off and easy. Lets keep going back here. The first time I heard of this dish was from my Mom who got it from my Aunt, an olive orchard owner in California, who called it Monterey Fondue? Hunh? No bread dipping here just soaking. Obviously this is a fancy name for a casserole that someone, somewhere needed to upscale a bit. Whatever. The whole point of this rambling paragraph is that the true name for this dish is a Stratta but it has many names and many more variations.

My version was quickly thrown together when I remembered a certain guest, who ironically did not show, did not like bagels (freak). I used farm fresh eggs, milk, crap sausage from my sons stash, green pepper and a loaf of bread. It was almost as big a hit as the salmon, almost not quite though.


Cheese Stratta--needs to refrigerate over night

loaf of french bread
soft butter amount will vary as to your particular buttering style I went light
6 sausage patties cooked
1/4 of a green pepper chopped
1 cup shredded sharp cheese
6 eggs
1 1/2 cups milk or half n half

trim all the crust off a loaf of bread
cut into cubes and butter each cube
place a layer of cubes in a 3 quart oven safe pan, I used my Le Creuset just because it's pretty
break up 3 sausage patties over this
throw in 1/2 the green pepper
and 1/2 the cheese
repeat he layers
mix the eggs and milk together
pour over the whole lot
refrigerate over night
bake for 35-45 minutes in a 350 degree oven