The Home Cook: Egg Bake Gone Bad

I'm not sure what it means. Perhaps it's a cosmic sign or an omen of bad mojo. Maybe it's just me getting far to flustered and not paying attention, who knows. But the fact remains that in some karmic fashion I am apparently not allowed to plan ahead for this blog. (See: promises to provide pictures of crafts, foods, etc.) I've had craft projects go awry at the last possible second, perfectly clear recipes implode and pre-planned photo projects get eaten by the camera. I think fate is trying to teach this Type-A, planner how to fly by the seat of her pants.

She's not enjoying it. At.All.

For further proof of this bizarre curse take note of what was supposed to be today's post. A strata stuffed with bacon, ham, carefully sliced green onions and gently grated smoked Gruyere and Cheddar. It was going to be easy, it was going to help me get used to photographing in my new kitchen, it was going to be delicious, bust mostly it was going to be EASY. Perhaps, not so much. I've done stratas before and it worked well, but the planning included a post-it on the recipe that said "Take pic when done" slapped on several weeks prior to any actual blog/photography related activity. Monday night came and it was time to prep the dish for it's overnight bask in the fridge.

Cubed the sourdough, sliced the onions, toasted the bread cubes, press the ham, chop the bacon, diced the ham, grated the cheeses, poured in the milk, added the eggs and seasonings. Whisk, combine pour...into a pan I forgot to grease. Ooops, that'll be a mess to clean out. Move on, cover in foil and refrigerate. In hind site perhaps that was the first sign that things would not go well, also perhaps it was a not such a good idea to use regular eggs in lieu of the specified egg substitute...how ever I had two dozen eggs in my fridge and no substitute, and it didn't seem like much of a big deal as I remembered to decrease my milk accordingly. Things should have gone swimmingly. Come Tuesday night, however, they did not.

Have you ever cooked an egg dish that will.not.set? Ever? I can now say I have. The recipe called for a total of 35 minutes of baking time, but since my dish was exceedingly chilled by the nearly arctic refrigerator I knew it would take a bit longer. However after an extra 30 minutes of baking, still with nothing resembling a set strata, I knew bad things were afoot. Having reached that inevitable undesirable, call for pizza before we starve stage, I let the strata bake. Just to see how long it took...after another 30 minutes in the oven it was finally done, with a completely burnt bottom and a just barely set center. Yay'n stuff.

So things we have learned:

1) Maybe using the egg substitute would have been a good idea.
2) Perhaps it is time to change the fridge setting so I quit freezing my lettuce and stratas.
3) Always.Grease.The.Pan. Always.
4) Setting the dish out to warm while the oven pre-heats is not a bad idea.
5) Do not snack on all of the smoked cheddar, while prepping the strata. The recipe calls for it on the eggs, not in the tummy.
6) Do not select a recipe specifically to "blog" about and expect it to turn out.

Things seemed so innocent and well planned on Monday. The chopped bacon and green onions were SO happy together then.

These would have made happy little olive oil and garlic crutons, instead they gave their lives for the Strata That Would Not Bake.