Peach Pecan Strata

Last strata till next week, I promise. ;)
Here are the details for Christy and anyone else who might be interested.
First, butter an 8X8 baking dish. Purple is prettiest, but any dish will do.

Next, dig a one pound loaf of bread out of the depths of the freezer. This La Brea Harvest Apple Spice has been in there for over a year!

Looks pretty good in this picture, right? But let me tell you, it's a CLUNKER!

In fact, I had to break out the electric knife to cut it into cubes. Do what you have to do to get your loaf of bread cut into approx. one inch cubes.

Arrange half the bread cubes in the bottom of the buttered baking dish. I fit them all in pretty snug against one another. I've noticed that some strata recipes call for slices of bread cut to fit into the bottom of the dish. You could try that too, if you want. I went with cubes.

Now add a layer of peaches from the tree in your backyard that you froze when they were ripe because you weren't sure what you wanted to do with them and now you're glad you weren't hasty with that decision. Or you could use frozen peaches from the store. Or canned I suppose.

Now sprinkle on about a 1/2 cup of coarsely chopped pecans. I actually just broke up some halves with my fingers. I like big pieces.

The cream cheese worked pretty well with the blueberry strata last week so I decided to go ahead and put some in this one too. I pinched about 2 oz. of cream cheese into little pieces and scattered it over the peaches and pecans.

Now put the other half of the bread cubes on top.

Next, mix together 6 eggs, 2 cups half and half (altho I am finding out that plain old milk works too), a teaspoon of vanilla, about a 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg and a about a teaspoon of cinnamon. Whisk it all together really well and then pour it evenly over the bread in the pan.

It should look like this.

Lay a piece of plastic wrap over it and gently push all the bread down into the egg mixture.
Then wrap the plastic down tight and put it in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, have your sweet hubby turn the oven on to 350 degrees at 5am and put the strata in at 5:15. Bake for one hour while you continue sleeping and he finishes getting ready for work.
At 6:15, take it out of the oven and let it sit for 10-15 minutes before cutting and serving to hungry children preparing to leave for school. Well, one hungry child. The other one had no interest because there were nuts involved.

Kenzie and I ate this with a little drizzle of maple syrup. It was delicious!

Christy~
I'll save some for ya. Stop by on your way to work tomorrow. I know Dennis doesn't like bread, so I'll fry him an egg and there'll be more strata for us. ;)

*Linking to Grocery Cart Challenge's Recipe Swap where I am sharing this recipe this week. :)