Uptight Lady's Strata

Have you seen The Family Stone? It's this amazing movie with SJP and Luke Wilson. Oh, Diane Keaton is in it too. And Rachel McAdams. Claire Danes is in it too, but who cares? Anyway, it's this movie centered around Christmastime (hello, seasonal reference!) and Diane Keaton's matriarch character intimidating SJP's tightly wound Meredith, would-be fiance of eldest Stone boy, Everett. Anyway, it's an emotional rollercoaster of...emotions. You'll laugh, you'll cry--you'll UGLY cry. It's serious. Seriously.

Anyway, there's a scene in the movie where SJP's relentless efforts to be accepted into the Stone family result in her attempt to make the perfect Christmas morning breakfast: The Morton family strata.

When I saw this movie, I had no idea what a strata was, but from Meredith's Martha Stewart-esque description, it's basically a fancy way of saying "breakfast casserole." I mean, it's eggs, some cheese, meat, and, in this case, stars of bread. My mom used to make something really similar, minus the star-shaped bread (we just tore it into chunks). Breakfast casserole was a kind of special treat in our house, like french toast or extended curfews, so we didn't have it often, but when we did, I generally had a serving, or three.

Even though I've brainwashed myself on the evils of bread and all things glutenous, I still find myself craving breakfast casserole, especially on the weekends. It's incredibly easy to pull together, serves a ton, and, of course tasty. So this weekend, I "challenged" myself to make a paleo version. I use the word "challenge" loosely, as my idea of making something with bread or potatoes paleo is to swap it out for cauliflower. And so that's exactly what I did.

When you're making a breakfast casserole, think of ingredients you would use in an omelet, since basically this is just a giant pan of omelet. I used onions, mushrooms, sausage, sage, and goat cheese.

 It was basically delicious.

Breakfast Casserole (otherwise known as Uptight Lady's Strata)*
Makes 9 large servings

• 12 eggs
• 1/2 head of cauliflower, cut into small chunks
• 1/2 pound pork sausage
• 1 yellow onion, diced
• A couple handfuls of mushrooms
• A few fresh sage leaves
• Goat cheese
• salt and pepper to taste

1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

2.) In a pan, saute diced onion in olive oil or butter until translucent. Add sausage to brown. Set aside. 

3.) In a medium sized bowl, whisk eggs with salt, pepper, and chopped sage. Pour onion and sausage mixture and mushrooms into a 9x13 inch casserole dish, then add the cauliflower. Pour whisked eggs on top of that. Top with crumbled goat cheese.

4.) Bake for 20 minutes, or until eggs have set.

*You can use any combination of ingredients here. Try green chilies, spicy chorizo and mozzarella for a southwestern flavor or artichokes, sundried tomatoes, and feta for a Mediterranean flavor. The sky's the limit! And don't let any uptight lady's tell ya any differently!