Erik-e-strata... get it?

I cannot take credit for the name of this. The lovely Kara Vicalvi was nice enough to inform me of what this dish would be considered in the culinary world, and after hearing it, Matt got the word "strata" stuck in his head. "Strata, you know, like ERIK E-STRATA!". What a gem.

The roots of this come from something that I will never eat again, but really missed. Growing up, every Christmas morning my mom would make us an egg, bread, sausage, and cheese casserole. It wasn't Christmas without it. For a while, as a vegetarian I ate eggs and cheese, so it was easy to just substitute veggie sausage. This year was our first Christmas in our new house and I felt it was necessary to make a vegan version of my mom's classic. It came out well then, but I think this one will take a few (or ten) tries to master. Here's my second:

You need to make this the night before, so plan ahead!

1 Small loaf of day-old french bread
1 cup daiya cheddar, divided
1 package vegan breakfast sausages (patties or links both work)
1 package (or 1 lb.) silken tofu
3/4 cup vegetable broth
1 tbs nature's seasons seasoning
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
1 tbs dried rosemary
2 tbs maple syrup
1 tbs grape seed oil

Break up bread into bite-size pieces and line them onto the bottom of a 2 quart casserole dish.

Cut breakfast patties or sausages into small pieces and saute with the rosemary and oil over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or per instructions, if frozen. Coat with maple syrup and mix well. Saute for another minute and layer on top of bread.

Cover bread and sausage with 1/2 cup of daiya cheddar.

Whisk tofu until smooth, then add vegetable broth and whisk until it's as smooth as possible. Note: this might look curdled and slightly gross- It's not!! Add nutritional yeast and seasoning and whisk until combined. (Afterthought- I imagine a blender would work just as well)

Pour tofu mixture over bread, sausage, and cheese, and give the dish a little shake so that it seeps in everywhere.

Layer the remaining cheese on top.

Let set in your refrigerator overnight.

Bake at 375 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour- until the edges are brown- and let sit for about 10 minutes once out of the oven.

N-BLT's with scallion garlic nayo

Tonight presented much less time to make dinner than usual, so this wasn't too involved. I put a little extra love into it, though, so that's what matters, right?

What need for two non-BLT's:

4 Slices of bread. I used multigrain here.

3 tbs nayonaise

1/2 tsp garlic salt

1 scallion, chopped

Non-Bacon strips of sorts. I used 4 strips per sandwich, but use as many or few as you'd like.

6 Romaine lettuce leaves

1 Avocado

1 Med. Roma tomato

Combine nayo, scallions, and garlic salt in a small bowl until well mixed.

Cut the avocado in two. Pit, skin, and slice each side into about 5 slices.

Slice the tomato so that you have about 6 even slices.

Cut the lettuce leaves into bread-size pieces.

Cook your "facon" per package instructions- mine was over medium heat in a non-stick pan for about two minutes on each side.

Toast your bread, if it suits your fancy (I think you're crazy if it doesnt!). Smooth nayo onto one side of each slice of bread, then layer the yums and munch!

I apologize in advance for the picture quality. I take pictures with my iPhone... 'nuff said. I'll work on that later, I promise.

I'm very excited for tomorrow's post... snowstorm + working from home = need for an awesome breakfast. It's chilling in the fridge as we speak and waiting to be baked as soon as I wake up. Hope everyone has a safe morning!

my thoughts on blogging

Remember live journal? I just did, and I logged in to make sure mine was deleted and purged. I made the decision to do that a long, long time ago (when you're 27, 5 years is a long long time!). I woke up one day and wondered why on earth I thought it was a good idea to put my every thought on the internet for the world to see. Did I really need the attention that badly? No.

To an extent, I've found that "blogging" these days is a fairly mutated, but evolved cousin of what live journal was years ago (and could still be now, for all I know...). I love it and hate it. Some people use blogging as a way to unleash their creativity and share their ideas with the world. I love that. Some people... don't.

I won't get into the types of blogs that I hate to see, because then mine would turn into one, but I'd like to simply state that my purpose here is to share my adventures in cooking with my friends and family. Maybe I'll get some feedback. Maybe Ina Garten will read this and invite me to be a guest vegan chef on The Barefoot Contessa. Maybe not.

I'll more likely get some gross comments about how my food looks like it should be sold in the pet aisle of a grocery store... either way, this is mostly for me because I want to and I promise not to go any further than this with my thoughts on life. So there.

I hope you enjoy.