Archive for Recipes

Asparagus Week: Whoa! Where’d those come from?

May 10, 2013 Asparagus, Gardening, Recipes No comments

Did spring go from zero to ALL OUT in roughly 14 seconds where you live? It sure seemed that way here in New England, where the boxes of dirt and pine needles we called our vegetable garden sprang to life almost overnight. Plants going gangbusters currently include some beans (tended by a gopher family)…

…hearty chard that survived our snow-tastic winter…

…and a surprise appearance by this week’s star, asparagus.

It’s not a complete surprise to see the asparagus – it’s there thanks to our planting last year, not because of some Johnny Asparaseed sneaking into our backyard. But we were under the impression that asparagus plants took at least 2 years to produce edible stalks, so when that (admittedly, small & overgrown) bunch of spears shot up unexpectedly, I had to scramble to figure out what to do with it.

I went with a long-standing spring favorite of mine: the white bean, leek and asparagus panzanella from Smitten Kitchen. It’s a colorful, vibrant mix of spring’s best that highlights the unique flavors of each component.

But, of course, there are innumerable things you could do with those slender green spears – and the more the better, since asparagus is a good source of several vitamins (especially K), minerals (including iron), and the pre-biotic fiber, inulin. Give some of these a try, and see if asparagus surprises you, too

  • Spring panzanella from Smitten Kitchen (here)
  • Zucchini pasta with roasted asparagus & sweet potato from Spabettie (here)
  • Asparagus soup with poached egg on toast from Jamie Oliver (here)
  • Spicy pickled asparagus from Simple Bites (here)
  • Coconut ginger braised asparagus from Teaspoon of Spice (here)
  • Indian-spiced chicken & asparagus from Eating Well (here)
  • Flatbread with pancetta, mozzarella & asparagus from Cooking Light (here)

Low-Wheat Week

April 27, 2013 Breakfast, Recipes, Week 101 No comments

Have you heard the word on the street… about wheat? It seems like every food producer is falling over themselves to slap gluten-free stickers on packages.

I’m trying to fight the urge to review this trend in depth; but there’s a lot there with which I (and, frankly, science) disagree, so here’s my $0.02 anyway. Outside of the context of actual celiac disease, gluten-free seems to be this decade’s fat-free – an way to malign one food component for all our health woes & sell a few more packages, without bringing us any closer to the real, holistic shifts in our eating (more produce, less processed) that will make big differences.

So why, then, am I still writing about recipes that help cut down on the wheat we eat?

Take a seat, wheat, it’s chia time.

Well, it’s partly about variety. The more varied your diet, the better your odds of getting the full spectrum of nutrients you need while enjoying novel, delicious foods every day. But in the Standard American Diet (put that acronym together) wheat-flour-based foods account for roughly 20% of our caloric intake (from Google preview of Michael Pollan’s latest, Cooked). And it’s also partly about processing. We get a lot of our wheat in the form of highly processed flour, which goes into highly processed food of questionable nutritional value.

What does “less wheat” means? When I started following CSPI’s hybrid of the two diets in the OmniHeart Study that were found to reduce heart disease risk, it meant sticking to 2-3 servings of grain daily (equal to 1 slice of bread or ½ cup cereal per serving). For me, that means I switch things up with open-faced sandwiches, veggies pretending to be pastas, and easy but cereal-free breakfasts like warm chia banana peanut butter pudding (pictured above; hat tip to Samantha for the idea). This week’s less-wheat list includes recipes along those lines, which you can try at home:

  • Chia breakfast pudding from Eating the Week (below)
  • Paleo date walnut bread from Elana’s Pantry (here)
  • Paleo pancakes from The Athlete’s Plate (here)
  • Open-faced chicken sandwiches from Cooking Light (here)
  • Thai cashew quinoa salad from Ambitious Kitchen (here)
  • Portobello breakfast cups from Tortillas & Honey (here)
  • Zucchini ribbon salad with mint and olives from Gourmande in the Kitchen (here)

Chia breakfast pudding

(1 serving, approx. 430 calories)

3 Tbs chia seeds
¾ cup almond milk (or whatever milk you like)
1 banana
1 Tbs almond butter (or, again, whichever nut butter you like)
Ground cinnamon, to taste

Mix the chia seeds and milk in a microwavable bowl, and stir several times over 8-10 minutes (giving it time to set into a gel consistency).

Add the banana in small pieces, and microwave on high for 1 minute.

Add the almond butter and cinnamon, and mash everything around so the banana pieces get softened and mixed in. Enjoy!

A Week Past Its Prime: Recipes for Overripe Bananas

March 1, 2013 Banana, Fruit, Recipes No comments

It’s time to turn that brown banana frown upside down, my friends.

Earlier this week, I saw that Huffpost Taste was featuring a set of recipes that use overripe bananas (and when I briefly suspected they had broken into my kitchen).

etw overripe twitter

I did, in fact, have a way-past-spotty banana languishing in the fruit bowl, but didn’t have any brilliant ideas for using it. Thankfully, Huffpost came to the rescue and I found in their collection a link to these great “breakfast cookies.” Extra-ripe bananas are especially sweet, strongly flavored, and easy to mash – all of which lent to their use in these hearty peanut butter, oatmeal and raisin morning treats.

But what if you’ve got a whole troop of aging tropical beauties on your counter? There are only so many breakfast cookies we can eat, so I dug up several more ways to use them.

Like everyone else under the sun who has ever written about using overripe bananas, I focused on Things That Are Not Banana Bread. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got nothing against those nutty sweet loaves; but Teh Internets abound with so many creative ways to put brown bananas to work, that I’d be remiss if I didn’t list some of them:

  • Oatmeal breakfast cookies from Dine and Dish (here) – The ones I made today were actually from this similar recipe.
  • Banana black bean empanadas from Epicurious (here)
  • Banana oatmeal bread from Cooking Light (here)
  • Banana scrambled eggs from Food.com            (here) – This never would have occurred to me, but sounds like a great idea
  • Secret banana smoothie from Real Mom Kitchen (here)
  • Avocado banana pudding from Vibrant Vegan (here) – I’m telling you, vegans know their way around some of the tastiest, simplest puddings I’ve found.
  • Breakfast mango guacamole from Green Lemonade (here) – Her original recipe doesn’t call for them, but in a later post she said ½-1 overripe banana tossed in adds a nice flavor.

Let me know with a comment if you give any of these recipes a go – unlike some other sites, I’m not going to creep into your kitchen to check up.

Snowed in for The Week – Winter seasonal recipes

February 13, 2013 Cauliflower, Cooking Light, Dinner, Lunch, Pasta, Recipes, Salad 2 comments

It looks like I owe you readers (particularly those in the Northeast) an apology, because I think I jinxed things with this week’s theme. “Oh, hey, it’s the middle of winter,” I thought, “Let’s do another winter seasonal recipe week.” And just a few days later…

Miles on top of Mount Snow

Was it the siren song of dark, leafy greens, one of the staples of mid-winter seasonal eating?

Or the lure of the hearty taste of roasted root or cruciferous vegetables, tossed with crunchy sunflower seeds?

Whatever brought it calling, the blizzard’s sweep through our north-of-Boston town sure provided me with a timely backdrop for this week’s recipe theme.

I first tried out the roasted cauliflower, beet and greens salad pictured above after my husband earmarked it in the recent Nutrition Action issue. It’s a classic combo of those dark greens and root vegetables that are key to many winter seasonal recipes – salads, stews, pasta dishes and more. But this time of year, there are also great ways to make use of the bright, crisp citrus fruits that thankfully become plentiful.

I’ve rounded up a week’s worth of recipes that showcase winter’s surprisingly tasty variety. You should try them once you’ve dug the car out of that 5-foot snow drift:

  • Roasted cauliflower and arugula salad from Eat Life Whole (here) – not the actual recipe I made, which has not yet been posted to Nutrition Action’s website. But if you omit the cheese and add in some cooked, diced beets, this is the same basic idea.
  • Turkey stew with root vegetables from Simply Recipes (here)
  • Winter pasta salad from The Daily Green (here)
  • Citrus curried couscous with brussel sprouts from Cooking Light (here)
  • Winter vegetable curry from The Food Network (here)
  • Skillet gnocchi with chard and white beans from Eating Well (here) – I think I’ve featured this before, but it’s certainly tasty enough for two mentions
  • Snap pea, grapefruit, maple and nut salad from Lunch Box Bunch (here)

Love Your Heart Week – Heart-healthy ingredients

February 5, 2013 Beans, Chocolate, Fruit, Nutrition, Nuts, Recipes, Seafood, Vegetable, Week 94 2 comments

One in four deaths in America. 600,000 deaths each year. The number one killer in the country. Do you know what it is?

It’s heart disease, and February is the month we hope to raise awareness and learn how to our risk of disease. The good news (well, from a food-blogger’s perspective) is that diet is one of the major ways we either help or hurt our hearts. So I’ve pulled together a week’s worth of recipes that feature foods rich in fiber, phytonutrients, healthy fats and more, to help keep hearts in tick-tock shape.

Chocolate (the darker, the better). It’s not for nothing that chocolate and heart-themed Valentine’s Day are paired up in our collective consciousness. Full of heart-friendly flavonoids, chocolate can help control blood pressure if you eat the high-cocoa content stuff (70% or more) regularly. And if you try it in my chocolate veggie enchilada recipe, you’ll also get some healthy fats from avocado and a good dose of vegetables.

Nuts. Your heart goes nuts for the mono- and polyunsaturated fats and phytosterols in foods like walnuts and almonds. And the little buggers are tasty, too, especially when ground up into creamy nut butters like the simple maple walnut butter from Eating Well With Janel.

Legumes. Beans, beans, the magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you… reduce your risk of heart disease! Yeah, my version isn’t as melodic (or amusing to first-graders), but it casts these fiber-rich, vitamin-packed legumes as the nutritional powerhouses they are. Give lentils a while in my curried lentil shepherd’s pie, or check out Bean Week for more recipes.

Berries. Blueberries, cranberries, cherries, elderberries, and more – they’re all packed with phytonutrients (flavonoids, carotenoids, polyphenols) that have been shown to promote cardiovascular health with regular consumption. Work them in easily as a snack or dessert with Cooking Light’s blueberry orange yogurt parfait.

Green vegetables. Well, duh, green vegetables are healthy for you. But foods like broccoli, spinach and others are especially good for the ol’ ticker because they’re rich in carotenoids, fiber, and potassium, among other nutrients. Epicurious has a simple, colorful side-dish recipe for chard with pine nuts and golden raisins that can ease anyone into the green-vegetable habit.

Orange vegetables. Carotenoids give foods like carrots, acorn squash, and sweet potatoes their lovely orange hue, and contribute to their associated with lower risk of heart disease. So orange you glad there’s a recipe like carrot “pasta” with kale parsley pesto from Betacyanin?

Fatty fish, flaxseeds, and other omega-3 fatty acid-rich foods. There’s some confusion about unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids’ role in heart health, because supplementation hasn’t conclusively been shown to reduce the risk of heart disease. But there’s ample evidence that eating foods rich in omega-3s does reduce your risk. So if you put down the pill bottle, pick up your fork (or spoon) and try adding fatty fish, nuts and seeds, and other good food sources to your diet. Cooking Light has a pan-seared salmon with jalapeno-pineapple relish recipe that sounds great for fish eaters, and veg-heads like me might want to throw some flaxseeds on their yogurt or into a bowl of oatmeal.

Recipe ReDux: A Trend in Every Pot – BBQ tempeh slowcooker chili

January 21, 2013 Recipe ReDux, Recipes, Slowcooker, Vegetable, vegetarian 10 comments

Slow-aged meat, raw winter vegetables, barrel-aged hot sauce and artisanal soft serve – the recipe for the weirdest sundae ever? Thankfully, no. These are some of the food trends the New York Times predicted will change up our plates in 2013 (but ideally not all combined together).

For January’s Recipe ReDux, the group was asked to jump on a new-year food trend with an original dish prepared in a single pot, slowcooker, etc. So I skimmed the (meat heavy, foodie-focused) list and found one a nutrition nerd could get behind: fermented foods.

We’ve tackled these in a previous ReDux, where I made pickled-jalapeno-topped sweet potatoes with egg. The trend seems to be gaining steam, fueled by the gut-health benefits of consuming “friendly” microbes.

This time, I’m promoting some probiotics in the new year with tempeh, or fermented soy bean. According to Wikipedia, this firm-textured, whole-bean food originates from Indonesia. The fermentation process binds the beans together and gives it an earthy, nutty flavor that is much heartier than that better-known soybean product, tofu. To play off tempeh’s “meatier” texture, I combined it with butternut squash and some BBQ flavor to make a quick and simple slowcooker chili.

The sweetness of molasses, brown sugar and bell peppers rounds out the tang of the fire-roasted tomatoes and tempeh, while the squash lends a nice hearty chunkiness. Sweeten things up for your GI flora with this easy-to-assemble recipe:

BBQ tempeh and butternut squash chili

4 servings, approx. 315 calories each

1 package tempeh, cubed

1 red onion, chopped

2 red, orange or yellow bell peppers, seeded and chopped

1 1/12 cups butternut squash (about1 lb), peeled, seeded and diced

2 14.5-ounce cans fire-roasted tomatoes

3 Tbs brown sugar

2 Tbs molasses

3-4 cloves garlic, crushed

1 ½ tsp paprika

½ tsp chili powder

2 ½ Tbs apple cider vinegar

1 Tbs Worcestershire sauce

3 Tbs ketchup

1 cup water

Combine everything in a slowcooker and cook on high for 4 hours, or low for 6-8 hours. Add small increments of water as necessary to achieve your desired consistency.

Ready to take on some new trends in the new year? Check out the links to more recipes from my fellow ReDuxers:


The Well-Planned Week: Batting 4 for 7 on a weekly menu plan

January 18, 2013 Recipes No comments

The best laid plans of protein and veggies often go astray.

Ok, so that’s not exactly how the saying goes, but it does describe my recent attempt at weekly meal planning. Since I saw Melissa Lanz’s post on Eating Rules, I’d been meaning to try out her system. You should go read the full post, but the gist is: pick a few proteins, then pick a few more seasonal veggies, and find recipes that you can build around those items (ideally also using up what you’ve already got in the pantry).

etw menu plan_1

So I picked four proteins – chickpeas, clams, turkey (for not-me) and tempeh (for me) – and sort of halfway thought about veggies – spinach, tomatoes, butternut squash – then set about making a recipe list:

  • White clam pizza from Taste Inspired (here)
  • Turkey vegetable pasta bake from Eating the Week (here)
  • Roasted butternut squash stuffed with fruit and spiced barley from Eating the Week (here)
  • Pasta with clams, tomatoes and spinach from Eating the Week (here)
  • Falafel burgers from Seasoned to Taste (here)
  • Asian meatballs with shitake mushrooms from The Sweet Beet (here)
  • BBQ tempeh sandwich from SparkPeople (here)

Armed with that list, I was feeling good about only needing one weekend grocery shopping trip to have all our dinners ready for the week. Then, my kitchen kind of blew up.

We had to remove a big chunk of our counter to prepare for installation of new ones (which got delayed another two weeks….). Then my bright idea to upgrade appliances to stainless steel meant no oven with which to cook half the stuff on my list! And to complicate things further, this is what my floor looked like:

I was left trying to figure out where to put dirty dishes and how to fix breakfast when we couldn’t walk on the re-tiled floor, so I certainly wasn’t going to be able to get a pizza put together.

Answer to the dishes question: laundry basket

So I ended up batting 4 for 7, managing to make the pasta bake, stuffed squash, pasta with clams, and BBQ tempeh sandwich but leaving the others untouched & several ingredients to spoil. But, I like the simplified process laid out in that Eating Rules post, so I will definitely try this again when the dust (literally) settles in our kitchen.

And hey, with the new floor in, we might be getting close to that point!

Re-Chewing Week: Curried lentil shepherd’s pie

December 17, 2012 Casserole, Dinner, Lunch, Recipes, Vegetable, vegetarian No comments

The Chew recently asked Cooking Light Blogger’s Connection members to take on a holiday challenge:

“Select one of the tasty recipes or cute craft ideas from The Chew, and make it your own by adding 1-3 different changes to the process.”

We had Edible Ornaments, Chocolate Pumpkin Pie, Holiday Apple Brown Betty and more to choose from, but my eye was drawn to Christine’s Shepherd’s Pie. Simple, hearty and tasty, shepherd’s pie has only one drawback from my perspective: the meat. So I decided to tweak the original recipe to make it vegetarian-friendly, and came up with curried lentil shepherd’s pie.

It only took a few simple alterations: 1) de-meat the recipe by swapping in lentils and taking out beef, beef broth and Worcestershire sauce; 2) spice things up with curry and garam masala; and 3) top the whole thing off with sweet potatoes for some added flavor and color.

The result is a sweet-and-savory dish that will welcome vegetarians to your holiday table (or at any time of year a warm hearty meal is in order!).

Curried lentil shepherd’s pie

Adapted from Christine’s Shepherd Pie recipe on The Chew

(6 servings, approx. 340 calories each)

Ingredients:
1 cup dry black lentils
4 cups water
1 tsp curry powder
3 medium sweet potatoes
3 Tbs butter, divided
1 ½ tsp garam masala
1 red onion, chopped
½ pound sliced mushrooms
1 bag frozen peas and carrots
Salt, pepper and garlic powder, to taste

Preheat oven to 400F degrees.

Cook the lentils: Combine the lentils, water and curry powder in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20-22 minutes. Drain water and set aside.

Cook and mash the sweet potato: Peel and cut the sweet potatoes into 1-2 inch chunks. Boil in salted water for 20 minutes or until tender. Drain the water, then combine potatoes, 2 Tbs butter and garam masala in a large bowl. Mash until smooth.

Sauté the vegetables: Heat 1 Tbs butter in a nonstick pan over medium heat. Add the onion and mushrooms, and cook for 8-10 minutes. Add the bag of peas and carrots and cook until defrosted. Add salt, pepper and garlic powder, to taste.

Put it all together: In a large baking dish, combine the lentils and cooked vegetables. Smooth the mashed sweet potatoes over the top, then rough up the surface with a fork. Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. If you want a nice browned top, finish under the broiler for 1-2 minutes.

The Missing Week: Magnesium’s turn in the spotlight

December 3, 2012 Beans, Dinner, Lunch, Nutrition, Nuts, Recipes, Salad, The Missing Week, Week 87 2 comments

There are several rockstar nutrients – calcium, vitamin D, iron, vitamin C – who can’t seem to share the spotlight with the rest of the cast. But somewhere a few steps off the red carpet, there’s a lesser known but hard-working mineral that deserves some attention: magnesium.

This salad will make a lot more sense after a few paragraphs.

Magnesium keeps bones strong, helps nerves zzzzap like normal, and is needed for a few other minor tasks like, oh, keeping your heart beating. (Lots more info here) But apparently that isn’t glitzy enough for the average eater, because nearly half of people age 1 and older have inadequate intakes (pdf).

Why? Well, our love of refined grains may be one culprit – wheat’s germ and bran are rich in magnesium, but those get stripped out when processed into flours and such. Green Veggie Phobia is another contributor, because if you aren’t eating your greens, you’re not getting the magnesium-rich chlorophyll.

I think we all agree that we like non-brittle bones and still-beating hearts, so what should we eat to get more magnesium? In general, whole grains, vegetables (especially the green ones), legumes, seeds and nuts are the way to go.

And that brings us to the salad I tossed (har) together that boasts several magnesium-rich foods on the marquee: garam-masala-roasted cashews, curried black lentils, and spinach, along with sweet potato and a simple dressing. Not only does this salad have a sweet and spicy crunch, but it delivers approximately half the magnesium required daily by the average adult.

The salad recipe follows below, and here’s a few additional ways to add more of the magnificent mineral to your meals:

  • “Good morning blend” yogurt parfait from Rodale (here)
  • Poached egg with walnuts and spinach from Cooking Light (here)
  • No-bake molasses, dates, seed and nut bites from Oh My Veggies (here)
  • Jumbo prawns with balsamic-orange onions from Eating Well (here)
  • Grilled halibut with roasted tomatoes from Rodale (here)
  • Papaya avocado salad from Eating Well (here)

Spiced cashew, curried lentil and sweet potato salad

(4 servings, approx. 460 calories each)

Ingredients:
1 cup cashews (unsalted)
1 Tbs garam masala
3 Tbs orange juice, divided
½ cup dry black lentils
2 cups water
1 tsp curry powder
2 medium sweet potatoes
6-8 cups fresh spinach
2 Tbs olive oil
2 Tbs apple cider vinegar

Roast the cashews: Heat the oven to 250F. Mix the cashews, garam masala and 1 Tbs orange juice in a bowl. Spread the cashews on a foil-lined baking sheet, and bake for 40-45 minutes, stirring once or twice during that time.

Cook the lentils: Combine the lentils, water and curry powder in a pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and simmer 20-22 minutes.

Cook the sweet potato: Pierce each sweet potato several times with a fork. Microwave each for 3 minutes on one side, then flip and microwave another 2-3 minutes.

Mix up the dressing: Whisk together the olive oil, apple cider vinegar and remaining 2 Tbs orange juice in a small bowl.

Put it all together: Divide the spinach among four bowls. To that add ¼ cup of the roasted cashews, one fourth of the cooked lentils, ½ of a sweet potato (sliced/cubed), and ¼ of the dressing (roughly 1.5 Tbs).

 

Multi-Layered Week: Pepper Jack and veggie strata

November 14, 2012 Breakfast, Brunch, Recipes, vegetarian No comments

I recently submitted a short piece to be included in an upcoming cookbook, waxing poetic about our new-ish tradition of hosting New Year’s Day brunch that centers around soft, sometimes savory, often sweet stratas.

Sure, the brunch menu always include scones and fruit salad, coffee and juice, but everyone’s really there for the strata (our friend Annie, for example, has moved over the years from “Soooo, what are you making?” to “Seriously, make the strata.”). I’m all too happy to oblige, because they are a cinch to serve at brunch – I pop it into the oven before my traditional New Year’s Day run, and a few miles and a shower later, my family and our friends are gathered around the good stuff.

When the folks at Cabot sent me their reduced fat cheeses to show off their recent package re-design, it was a no-brainer to use the pepper Jack in a vegetable strata I knew would bring people running (in my case, literally). The cheese gives it just enough kick to keep things interesting alongside the sweet bell peppers, tomatoes and savory mushrooms.

Photo courtesy of Cabot Coop

The recipe for my pepper Jack and veggie strata follows below, and if you want to round out the week with stratas every morning, here are six more recipes I found around Teh Internets. Where some of these (the Martha Stewart and Oprah recipes, for example) use whole milk and a bazillion whole eggs, you can save a few calories by using lower fat dairy and using roughly 1.5 egg whites instead of each whole egg:

  • Pear gruyere cinnamon swirl strata from Cooking Light (here)
  • Savory bread pudding with kale and mushrooms from New York Times (here)
  • Tomato spinach dinner strata from Eating Well (here)
  • Portabello asparagus goat cheese strata from Whole Foods Recipes (here)
  • Sausage and swiss chard strata from Martha Stewart (here)
  • Raspberry goat cheese strata from Oprah (here)

Pepper Jack and veggie strata

I don’t actually measure how much bread goes into this, but it’s probably about 5 cups of bread cubes.

(8 servings, approx. 270 calories each)

Ingredients:
½ Tbs olive oil
1 red onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 bell peppers, chopped
4-5 oz sliced mushrooms (~1/2 a box from the grocery store)
1 ½ cups shredded reduced-fat Pepper Jack cheese like Cabot Pepper Jack Light
1 baguette, roughly cut into 1-inch pieces
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 ½ cups 1% milk
5 egg whites and 4 whole eggs
1 tsp cumin
½ tsp chili powder
½ tsp dried oregano
¼-1/2  tsp ground black pepper
2 tomatoes, thinly sliced
Salsa to taste

Heat the olive oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Once it gets shimmery, add the onion and garlic and cook for 3-4 minutes. Add the bell pepper and mushrooms, and cook for another 4-5 minutes or until the mushrooms have released most of their water. Remove the pan from heat.

Spray the inside of an 8×11-ish casserole dish with cooking spray. Inside the dish, layer ½ of the bread cubes, ½ of the vegetable mixture, and ½ of the shredded cheese. Follow that with a layer of the remaining bread cubes and then the remaining vegetable mixture. Arrange the tomato slices to cover the top, and then layer on the remaining cheese.

In a medium-sized bowl, combine the milk, egg whites, whole eggs, cumin, chili powder, oregano and black pepper. Whisk together and pour over the contents of the baking dish. Press down gently on the top with a spatula, to compress the layers and allow the liquid to soak into all the ingredients.

Cover with foil and allow to sit for at least 30 minutes but ideally overnight in the fridge.

When ready to bake, heat the oven to 350. Bake the strata at 350 with the foil on for 25 minutes; then remove the foil and continue baking for another 25 minutes.

Remove from the oven and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. Slice into 8 pieces and serve with salsa of your choice!

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