Even Easier Frittatta Recipe

Back when we had laying hens, eggs were on the menu pretty darn often. We've been in an egg drought lately, but thankfully many of my new friends also have chickens. We're back in egg business! Not only back in business, back in excess: a friend gave me an extra dozen at the end of market last Sunday, so we've got a lot of eggs on our hands. What do i always think of for dinner when we have lots of eggs on hand?? Frittatta, of course! That impossible to spell, easy to cook, perfect dinner or brunch meal. 1 frittatta is perfect for a main course for 2 or a side for 4. Chock full of protein, and completely maliable to whatever seasonal veg you have in the garden or fridge, frittattas truly are the perfect weeknight meal.

I've cooked several variations of this dish in the past, from Some Kinda Chef's inspired version to my stand-by cooked to perfection, without a recipe for my Grandmother's 90th birthday. As with many of my recipes, my frittattas are always just suggestions rather than rules. The method is generally the same, but the ingredients seasonal. I fiddled with my method the other night, however. And it was delicious!  I usually saute the vegetable ingredients first, set them aside, layer sliced potatoes back in the warm pan, top with the veg, and top with beaten eggs mixed with optional milk and cheese. This time i skipped the sautee, and the results were different, but great!

Even Easier Fritatta Recipe

• 3 small new potatoes or one large baking potato, microwaved for about a minute and sliced very thinly
• 2 chard leaves, chopped finely (or kale, or spinach, or....)
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 1 elephant garlic clove, or 2 regular garlic cloves, minced
• 1 onion, diced
• 1 large tomato, or 2 small tomatoes
• 1/2 zucchini, thinly sliced
• 1 small cauliflower head, sliced (or broccoli)
• 6 eggs
• splash milk
• Herbs/seasonings: salt, pepper, basil, paprika, etc
• 1/2 cup shredded cheese

Instead of sauteing the veggies, i started the layer right away. A thin drizzle of olive oil first, then the layer of potato slices. Keep the slices thin and overlap them slightly. This layer is your 'crust.' I used those purple majesty potatoes again: yum! Fry the potatoes for a few minutes on med/high heat without stirring them at all. You could put a lid on the pan for this part - you just want to be sure the potatoes will get soft and cooked in the oven. Preheat to 375. Turn off the heat to the pan and start layering the veggies. You don't have to wait for the pan to cool. I layered min in this order, but you can mix it up however you'd like. Jalapenos, onions, garlic first layer. Cauliflower second layer. Cheese. Zucchini slices (round slices, not overlapping). Chard to cover the rest, be sure it's chopped up pretty well. Top with the egg mixture: 6 beaten eggs with a splash of milk and any herbs/seasonings you like. The eggs might not 'cover' all the veggies, but that's okay. The final layer should be thinly sliced tomatoes arranged evenly spaced on the top. The juice from the tomatoes will help counteract the shortness of the egg mixture, and all will end up cooking down and amalgamating themselves together.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until cooked through: the top should bounce back if pressed and their shouldn't be any egg gooeyness apparent. Enjoy with a delicious fresh salad of seasonal salad greens, fresh un-cooked corn, fresh raw shredded beats, bell peppers, a little more fresh tomato, some roasted sunflower seeds and a splash of oil and vinegar. This is a late Summer meal fit for anyone's table! Gorgeous! (Too bad my camera has been having a hard time focusing in the dim light of my new kitchen, after being dropped by my 'sous chef' of a husband. Snarf.)

This post is part of the Simple Lives Thursday blog hop!

Family Recipe: Frittatta in Pyrex

As you probably remember, i like to cook my frittattas in an oven safe pan. I start it on the stove and finish it in the oven. That's just great when you're serving two as a main course or 4 as a side dish. Not as good when you're cooking dinner for your little family plus your parents while you stay as a guest in their barn for several weeks until you find a job.......    In other words: you need enough to feed everyone and keep them happy! I tweeked my recipe slightly, omitted any hot spices to accommodate my Yankee of a mother, and used the last full dozen eggs from our last 2 hens that we left in Austin.

Fritatta in a Dish/Casserole/Pyrex/Lasagna Pan:

• 1 dozen eggs (from our hens in Austin)
• 1 crown broccoli
• 1 sweet onion, 1 red onion (from our Austin garden)
• Generous spoonful ricotta cheese
• Plenty of garlic (from our Austin garden)
• Salt, pepper
• Dried spices: smoked paprika, thyme
• Fresh basil
• 2 potatoes

Nuke the potatoes some. Meanwhile saute the onions with the dried herbs, salt and pepper and a splash chicken stock. As they begin to soften add the garlic (and lots of jalapenos if you're not serving my mother) and broccoli- chopped in uniformish pieces. Meanwhile scramble the eggs and ricotta, plus fresh herbs and more salt if you desire adding a splash of water or milk. Slice the mostly cooked potatoes thinly and line the bottom of a greased casserole dish. Top with the warm and perfectly (to your taste) sauteed veggies and top all with the egg mixture. You may wish to sprinkle some shredded cheese on the top as well. Bake at 375 for 20+ minutes or until the eggs puff and are cooked throughout.

Slice into four sections for the perfect 3 egg meal. Great with a salad or all by itself: you've got all the protein and veggies you need for dinner. Add some sausage/bacon/ground meat for extra protein if you have meat lovers with you.

Guest Recipe: Fritatta

Fritatta. The word that cannot be spelled. It's a great weeknight, last minute or planned ahead dinner. If you have chickens, you should have fritatta. With so many variations possible, it's hard to write or follow a hard and fast recipe, but thanks to Some Kinda Chef for the inspiration for last Friday's version:

• Locally caught wild Hog sausage
• Kale and broccoli greens from my garden
• 8 eggs from my hens
• Splash raw milk from Stryk Dairy
• Herbs from the garden 
• Salt, pepper, smoked paprika
• Habanero and cayenne, frozen and dried respectively from the garden
• Garlic
• Onions from the garden
• Cheese

Some Kinda Chef recommended sauteeing bacon with the onions and garlic then transferring to a pie dish, layering in the following ingredients on top. I prefer to use the same saute pan for the baking, so i did things a little differently:

1. Fry or sautee (whatever you want to call it) the sausage (or ham or bacon or whatever) with chopped onions, fresh herbs and garlic until the sausage is decently cooked and the onions are softening. 
2. Meanwhile, beat the eggs with milk, salt, pepper, paprika and any other spices you want. 
3. Top the meat and onions with chopped greens, reduce heat to mediumish and cover until the greens are wilted. 
4. Pour egg mixture over the greens.
5. Sprinkle the cheese on top and bake at 365ish for 25ish minutes, until eggs are puffy, cooked through and the cheese is browning.

I usually make a potato 'crust' at the bottom and so feared this dish wouldn't be that filling. Boy, howdy was i wrong! I got stuffed with less than half of this baby, and the hubby agreed: delicious!

Thanks to all my readers who submitted recipes to my call for recipes! I got some great ideas. Stay tuned for an extra special post tomorrow: i'm hosting a giveaway for a super duper product from Season's Gleanings, a card company that utilizes homegrown veggies to create beautiful artwork. As a tease, check out her blog then head back tomorrow to enter to win a set of cards!

This post is part of the Simple Lives Thursday blog hop!

Brunch Recipes #2: Skillet Taters and Two Fritattas

A. I never know if fritatta is spelled frittatta or fritatta. I'm going with fritatta. Both get little red mispelling lines underneath. But so does misspelling. haha.
okay, focus, miranda.



I had a great soux chef for our family brunch: my husband who was dear enough to travel 6 hours to meet my ENTIRE family and then help me stir potatoes for half an hour. What a guy. The potatoes were easy, just required a lot of stirring. You can sub any seasonings you like, add more oil, more onions, whatever. They're easy. I make fritattas about once a week or so, so i've gotten 'back of my hand' with them too, tossing in whatever i have on hand. The main thing to remember about the fritatta: 375 degrees for about 20 minutes, until bubbling, puffed, and fully cooked in the center.

I got to use my grandma's mother's cast iron pans, making the fritattas that much more special.

I cooked two, factoring my grandmother's inability to digest onions or garlic. I also made her her own little dish of onion/garlic free potatoes. Birthday girl gets a taste of everything!

Potatoes

• A bunch of local potatoes, red and purple
• Smoked paprika
• Chopped onion and garlic
• Fresh herbs: rosemary, sage
• Salt, pepper
• Whatever else you want!

Oil the pan and skillet fry those taters. It was more of a 'move and flip to cook evenly' than a fry - but you get the picture. I could have roasted them in the oven, but it was being used for muffins and fritattas. I think we cooked them for at least 30 minutes.



Fritatta 1

• 5-6 eggs
• Roasted pumpkin flesh
• Dash milk
• Fresh herbs: rosemary, sage, basil
• Local champagne cheese

Fritatta 2

• Maybe a full dozen eggs
• Splash milk
• Sauteed veg
• Broccoli
• Garlic
• Onion
• Fresh, chopped tomatoes (from my Austin garden)
• Herbs: rosemary, sage, basil
• Salt, pepper
• Sliced onion for garnish
• Local cheddar cheese

For both fritattas:
Microwave a big potato and slice very thin. Meantime sautee the onions, garlic with seasonings adding the broccoli last. Remove from pan. Grease pan(s) and lay down the potatoes evenly like a bottom crust. Whip up the eggs with their splashes milk and their veggies/ seasoning. Pour half over the potato crust, layer cheese evenly as a middle layer topping with remaining egg. Cook at 375 until done - the bigger one took about 30 minutes, the smaller about 20. I liked putting the cheese in a sliced layer instead of shredding into the egg mixture because you got a layer type goo yum instead of invisible cheese calories hiding in the mix.

Pretty easy and very delicious. I liked cooking the fritattas in the cast iron because it kept them fairly warm up til breakfast time. Test for doneness when you the center puffing up - they're done when they firmly resist pressure, or a fork peeked inside shows cooked egg with no goo (other than cheese goo).

I think i did a decent job putting together a fairly seasonal/locally sourced brunch menu. I did cook some ham that came from Kansas City, and the fruit salad was bananas and canned fruit :(   but the rest of the 'from scratch' goodies at least were as local as i could get.

What would you have made your family for a special birthday brunch?

Pesto Fritatta

Omigosh, this was delicious. DELICIOUS. I've been really 'not in the mood to cook' lately and have been having a hard time thinking of new things to make. How silly that i've been overlooking the one ingredient that comes delivered to me in a shiny brown package every day: EGGS.

So yesterday i decided to make a batch of cheeseless pesto and do some experimenting with fritatta. Fritatta is so versatile - you could make it sweet, savory, milky, cheesey, whatevery. I plan on making this one again, but also to continue experimenting with whatever is ripe and on hand.
I came up with something pretty healthy, the right balance of satisfying and light, and used a bunch of garden ingredients to create this:

• 5 eggs
• Handful fresh chopped tomatoes - i used Porters
• 1 red onion, pre microwaved or par boiled
• 1 large clove garlic
• Some onion, about 2 T
• 1 jalapeno
• 1/2 Cup or more freshly made pesto
• Basil
• Garlic chives
• Pecans
• Fire roasted serranos
• Olive oil
• Sauteed Tofu (could use any meat here as well)
• Sauteed with smoked hot paprika and salt

Saute the onions, garlic, and jalapeno in a little olive oil (plus a dash of truffle oil). Once soft set aside.

Re coat the pan with spray or regular oil and place the potato in slices along the bottom of the pan. Scramble the eggs with the pesto and tomatoes and add the sauteed onion mixture once it's cooled to the scramble. Place the sauteed tofu evenly over the potatoes and pour the eggs over that and bake at 375 for about 20 minutes. Keep your eye on it and remove when it's firm and bouncy to the touch. I added some cheese on the top for fun, but it totally didn't need it. The mixture of the eggs and pesto made a really unique fritatta that was not dry but not creamy either. There was much approval from the husband and a request for a second was chuckled at, but considered ;)