This recipe can be adapted to include any of your favorite ingredients. You can also reduce the eggs from 8 to 6 if you prefer. You can use different types of bread, but the bread needs to be dense so that it is sturdy enough and doesn't become mushy when the eggs are added.
You can lighten the dish up by using all milk instead of milk and cream, or by reducing the cream by 1/2 a cup and replacing it with milk.
If you are serving this strata after refrigerating for several hours, preheat the oven, remove strata from fridge and bake. Add 10 minutes to the covered baking time.