About four days before Christmas Eve, I bought the two-pack of Costco's white oval loaves. While assembling the strata, I cut all of the ends off - about 3 inches of each. Then I cut the bread into 1-1/2 or 2 inch thick slices - about five slices for each loaf. Gerry buttered one side of each slice and cut them into cubes. We placed all the cubes into a baking dish (ours was a stainless pan a bit bigger than 9x13 but shallow).
Cook 1 pound of breakfast sausage (I removed the sausage from the casings, but you could buy it loose) and cook 5-10 minutes until browned.
Add 1 T of fresh chopped sage and fold it into the co
oked sausage and cook a minute more.
Sprinkle the sausage onto the bread cubes evenly across and into corners.
Sprinkle with 1 cup yellow and 1 cup white cheese or any combination you'd like of grated cheese (I substituted 1/2 cup with grated Jarlsberg.)
Whisk together 7 eggs with 3 cups milk, 1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper and 1/2 tsp. dry mustard. Salt and pepper to taste. (I used a rotary hand mixer to really blend the eggs and powders.)
Pour over the bread and sausage evenly. Cover and refrigerate.
Bake for 1 hour or until bubbly
