Saute the Italian sausage, red bell pepper and mushrooms in a sauté pan with a little butter. When the ingredients are heated through, add white wine and deglaze the pan. Do not cook the filling all the way as it is going to cook more in the oven.

Whisk eggs in medium bowl with half and half, kosher salt and pepper.

Arrange half of the bread in a single layer in an 8×8 inch baking dish. Spread filling and half of the cheese over the bread layer. Cover with another layer of bread.

Pour egg mixture evenly over layers. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover with plastic wrap and weigh down, refrigerated, for at least an hour, or overnight.

Bake in 350 F oven for 45 minutes to an hour or until the strata has puffed up on the edges and center. Cool slightly before cutting and serving.

{These instructions contain affiliate links.}

Before we begin you should probably head over to the New England Cheemaking Supply Company to read about yogurt making. You can buy your starter from them, but because I have Amazon Prime, it's cheaper for me to buy it on Amazon because of the free shipping.

I'm basically doing what their site says, just using a crock pot instead of a Yogotherm. I do have one of their Yogotherms and love it, but it takes more than twice as long. So depending on how much time I have, I either use the crockpot or the Yogotherm. The yogurt turns out the same whether I use the crockpot or Yogotherm.

My husband also has filmed most of this yogurt making process on his Dare to Cook - Gourment Food Presentation DVD if that would be helpful.

First things first . . . My crockpot filled with 12 cups of water sits at around 105 degrees on the warm setting with the lid off. This seems to be the perfect environment to culture yogurt. Before you try this method, you'll need to test the temperature of your crockpot. If it sits at around this same temperature, this method should work fine. If not, you might want to try using a Yogotherm to culture the yogurt instead.

Before I begin heating the milk, I pour 12 cups of warm water in the crockpot, put the lid on it and then turn it on to warm. When I'm ready to put the yogurt in to incubate, I leave the lid off for the rest of the time.

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

In a sauce pan, heat the milk slowly on the stove until it reaches 200 degrees.

Place lid on pan and put in the oven.

Hold at 200 degrees for 20 minutes.

Cool milk to just under 120 degrees. (I usually place a bunch of ice in the small side of my sink and fill it with water and place the pan in there to cool it faster.)

Add yogurt starter and let hydrate for a few minutes.

Mix well.

Pour into pint size mason jars and cover with a lid. (Or pour into Yogotherm and cover.)

Place mason jars in the crock pot and let culture for 3 1/2 hours. Note: If you are using the Y5 starter powder from above, it will need to process twice as long (about 7 hours). The next time you make it, use about 1/4 cup of yogurt from the previous batch as your starter and then it should only need to process for 3 1/2 hours. (Process in Yogotherm for 8-9 hours.)

You can place the jars in the refrigerator and enjoy the plain yogurt at this stage or you can keep going for thicker yogurt.

Place a strainer lined with a flour sack dish cloth or cheese cloth over a large bowl.

Empty the mason jars into the strainer and let the yogurt drain for 1-2 hours, depending on how thick you want your yogurt.

Remove the thick yogurt from the cheese cloth and whisk in 1/4 cup of honey.

Transfer to 1/2 pint mason jars or a larger container and refrigerate.

It's a bit of a lengthy and technical process, but the yogurt is AMAZING and totally worth it!!