Strata

On Sunday, Colin and Christy came over along with Colin's parents, his sister and brother-in-law, and his beautiful niece Madeleine. Maddy is only 4 days older than Kian, so it was very fun seeing them together. They played "patty cake" together for awhile, stared at each other, and gurgled quite a bit. It was a great morning filled with friends, good food, and mimosas. We'll have to do it again when they're in town. I look forward to seeing Kian and Maddy really play when they're older.

For breakfast, I made a sour cream coffee cake (with choc chips, cinnamon and pecans) and two different stratas. I had never made a strata before; in fact, I'd never even heard of one before. However, having looked over the recipe with Colin a few days beforehand, I figured that it looked easy (key for hosting brunch when you have a baby) as well as sounding delicious. Let me tell you. DELICIOUS. I am so sad that I had never had a strata before. I will shamefully admit that I was more than a little miffed that Rob had finished the rest of it this morning while I was at a doc's appointment. Fortunately, he appeased me by heating up one of Andy's cinnamon roles (they freeze quite nicely!). Anyway, I am super happy to have a new breakfast dish that is easy and extremely versatile. I look forward to trying out lots of different combinations. We made a spinach, shallots, and gruyere cheese one and a sausage, shallots, mushrooms and monterey jack one. I just did both of the recipes from Cook's Illustrated (my favorite cookbook), but now I'm ready to venture out on my own... definitely upgrade the breakfast sausage, cremini mushrooms, and monterey jack.