A Cuppa for my thoughts: Strata McMuffin; a fun food

Hmm... what do we have today?

It was supposed to be frittata because whenever I use my oven, I like to fill her (my oven) up; I believe it will save on my electricity bill and not contribute towards global warming. But I changed my mind and settled for a quiche when I found my dusty old muffin tin, which has not been used since I lost my cake mixer (lost? how was that possible? Long story, but sponsors for a cake mixer are welcomed, wink wink). Then there was some staling bread which I could have revived with my three steps stale-bread-revival method but I found a clever way to use up this going stale bread, so I settled for some strata.

All ingredients were prepped for strata but the muffin tin wasn't deep enough to create layering effects like a typical strata. So I had to make do and thanks to McDonald's flyer on my kitchen counter I had the genius idea of turning this strata into egg McMuffins.

Please don't give up on me just yet, keep reading because this recipe is seriously good and is a keeper.

Here is a sneak peek at my creation, Strata McMuffins......Ta Da!

I basically used all the ingredients you would for a McMuffin but assembled it a little differently. I kid you not, these are great for breakfast, lunch and even dinner. They make great lunch box food or for your husband who has no time for a proper breakfast but still fill his belly nibbling on it while driving, with zero risk of soiling his office shirt.

These are so good that you can make them the night before and refrigerate for a healthy breakfast just by popping it into the microwave for minutes and serve warm.

Convinced? Then lets get down to business and learn how to make these cute little fun food.

To make these, I am leaning towards calling them Strata McMuffins but please feel free to call them whatever you think is more suitable (and do comment below so I will know too) you will need some eggs, bread; flatten with a rolling pin and cut into circular shape to fit into your greased muffin tin (very important to grease), crisp crunchy (erm... or is the correct term hardy?) vegetables like capsicum, onion, celery, cauliflower, broccoli, brussels sprouts, tomato and even parsnip, but it is best to keep it to a selection of three to four vegetables so it may not over crowd the strata. These vegetables must be chopped or diced (tiny). Add some meat like ham slices to it or not and that too must be cut into small pieces.

If you like artsy food you may want line the greased muffin tin with bacon before adding your vegetables and egg mixture so you will get a lovely golden brown, crusty egg muffin.

But if you decide to keep it light or meat free (some don't consider eggs to be meat), be sure to put in some fat like butter or olive oil before baking these muffins.

Bake it i a preheated oven between 185'C to 200'C for about 15 to 20 minutes or until the egg mixture has set. If you like your eggs soft, then remove once the strata is a little wobly in the middle.

That's all there is to it. It is rather simple and straight forward once you have all ingredients prepped.

Here is my version of Strata McMuffin;

Base

4 eggs

1/4 cup milk or water

1 t cinnamon powder

Salt 7 pepper to taste (add paprika for heat)

Beat this ingredients and refrigerate (climate over here is too warm to let it stand on the kitchen counter or you may chop the vegetables first)

Vegetables

1 onion, chopped

1 bell pepper, chopped

1 firm tomato, deseeded and chopped

Fat

Butter

Cheese (optional)

Other ingredients which I did not use when making my Strata McMufiin but will be sure to add on my next batch

ham

salmon ham

shredded chicken

peas

sliced sausages

Hope you will enjoying playing with this recipe as much as we have. Seriously this is one, go crazy recipe, which your kids can decide what to add or even make it personalised when adding ingredients into the muffin tin.

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