Make Ahead Meal: Apple-Stuffed Strata

Tomorrow night for dinner we will be enjoying another breakfast meal.  I love having breakfast for dinner!  This is a recipe I have made before, and everyone in my family enjoyed it.  It is a meal that you have to make ahead, which to me is really great.  I made it tonight after my daughter was already in bed.  Now it is fully prepared, just waiting to be cooked tomorrow.

Last fall, I gave myself the gift of a magazine subscription (got to love those school fundraisers) to Cooking Light.  This recipe comes from their December 2012 issue, and you can view the original here.

Apple-Stuffed Strata

Ingredients:

~2 teaspoons butter (okay... well, I know this comes from Cooking Light, but I definitely used more than 2 teaspoons... use your own judgment/preference here)
~4 cups sliced peeled apple (recipe called for Golden Delicious, which I used last time... this time I only had Fuji on hand, so Fuji it is)
~6 tablespoons granulated sugar, divided
~cooking spray
~12 sliced cinnamon swirl bread, cut in half diagonally (I used Pepperidge Farm)
~3/4 cup chopped pecans, divided
~1 1/2 cups 1% low-fat milk (again, I didn't have 1% milk this time, so I actually used half skim, and half 2%)
~1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (seriously... only 1/2 teaspoon?  I just couldn't do that... I used about 1 tablespoon, but that's my own preference.)
~5 eggs
~1 tablespoon turbinado sugar (this is also called sugar in the raw, but you can use regular granulated sugar if you want... it's just not quite the same, but that's just me)

Directions:
1. Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add apple and 1 tablespoon granulated sugar to pan; saute 8 minutes or until apple is tender and lightly browned.  Remove from heat; cool 5 minutes.

2. Coat an 11 x 7-inch glass baking dish with cooking spray.  Arrange half of bread in dish.  Top with apple mixture; top with 1/2 cup pecans.  Arrange remaining bread over pecans.

3. Combine the remaining 5 tablespoons granulated sugar, milk, cinnamon, and eggs in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.  Pour milk mixture over bread, pressing down to submerge.  Cover and chill overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
5. Uncover dish.  Sprinkle remaining 1/4 cup pecans and turbinado sugar evenly over bread.  Bake for 48 minutes or until knife inserted in center comes out clean.

Full nutrition facts can be found on the magazine's website.  But the basics are that they say it serves 8, with 337 calories per serving.

So I'm a happy Momma tonight, because my family's Monday night dinner is already done!  All I have to do is add the rest of the pecans and my turbinado sugar, and bake this dish.  I'll also be serving some bacon with this, but that will be super easy.

~nikki