Young & Hungry

Strata.  The savory sibling of sweet bread pudding.  A breakfast casserole or stuffing of sorts.  I do love a good strata. 

There are so many fabulous things about stratas I barely know where to begin.  How about with the fact that you can make them a day ahead and sleep in the morning of consumption?  Or what about the flexibility of knowing that you can use almost anything you have around as long as you have a few key ingredients that are standard pantry staples(see strata take 2)?  My new favorite thing about the strata is that I can bake it in the standard casserole dish, individual ramekins, OR I can bake it in one large pan and then use ramekins or cookie cutters to divide it into pretty little individual portions and then top with a poached egg.  As with bread pudding that can now be found in every variation from sweet potato to s’more, the sky’s the limit! 

 
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In this umm…economical state, it never fails to amaze me how many people are leaving their perfectly good jobs for new ones.  It seems as though I hear of someone making a switcharoo every week and I know that it can’t be that there are an overabundance of jobs out there, I read the newspaper.  In fact, I read that employers are actually looking for people with jobs to hire as they are obviously the better employees that survived the cuts.  Way to help boost the economy people!  Speaking of, could you please start reading the newspaper again.  I would very much like to one day turn this site into some sort of column, however, that requires you, dear reader, to start purchasing the daily news again.  Don’t forget to recycle. 

 

The point of previous rant is that I made this bread pudding for a goodbye party for one of the girls at work.  A Baking Bye Bye if you will, bittersweet isn’t it.  It turned out to be the perfect farewell for our friend who is also an avid baker and was surprised when we all had different goodies waiting for her in the café.  I’ll never forget my first bread pudding or Budin, as they call it in Costa Rica.  I had my first Budin experience at our host family’s home while we were on a mission trip in Alajuelita.  It wasn’t as rich as our Americanized version, but the unique texture of their breads made for a  fabulously dense and delicious variation.  You could eat it with your hands, like a bar almost, and that’s just what I did. 

 

This version, packaged in cupcake papers, is almost as user friendly.  I thought I was being original, making bread pudding in easy to manage individually wrapped portions, but as it turns out it’s been done before.  It’s so difficult to be innovative these days.  That said, I think you’ll find this recipe to be the perfect combination of sweet & fruity goodness and that it’s texture is well suited to the presentation.

 

 
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