Eggs are the perfect food

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eggs, frittata, postaday2014

I have to say that ever since I have discovered the beauty of the frittata, I see how the egg is the perfect food, conducive to marriage with so many different vegetables, herbs and cheeses. I can even envision a dessert frittata in the works one of these days.

Whenever I want to make our son happy, I turn out a frittata and he is satisfied and excited about eating which always makes me happy as well. This time around for the frittata experience I kept it very simple; eggs, goat cheese, garlic and potatoes. I also used a combination of olive oil and duck fat to sauté the diced potatoes before adding the egg mixture.

I am happy to say that the frittata was a hit; everyone enjoyed it. This is definitely one of my favorite things to make especially when I don’t have much in the refrigerator or I don’t have that much time to prepare dinner. I will experiment with the dessert idea one of these days; it could be fun and tasty. 🙂

Cooking is more than just about eating

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frittata, goat cheese, postaday2014, potatoes

I have found over the years that gardening, writing, baking and cooking have all become ways that I channel away my anxieties and angst. There are times when I don’t even know why I feel anxious, but I do and instead of wondering as to the why of it; I focus instead of using either gardening or cooking to physically work out those negative feelings before they take a hold of my psyche and it works for me.

Today since it was raining, I turned to my kitchen and decided to make a frittata with what I had in the pantry and the refrigerator. Onions, garlic and chives when it as usual, but this time I wanted to use up the baby red potatoes, so I diced them up to sauté them and I had a flash of inspiration, why not sauté the potatoes in duck fat that I had in the freezer, potatoes taste wonderfully when sautéed in duck fat, so they should be a tasty addition to my frittata. I added a nice helping of crumbled goat cheese because my son liked it so much in the last one that I had made and I put it in the oven and voila.

Later on tonight I will assemble the Vietnamese soup with all of the herbs; mint, scallions and cilantro chopped and the bean thread noodles, the shredded chicken and the tiny shrimp. The kitchen has smelled very comforting these past two days, tomorrow I may bake something such as an apple tart, I’ll see how I feel tomorrow morning.

A great reason for making frittata

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berries, frittata, pineapple, postaday2014

Our daughter is now home for the summer! We haven’t seen her for four long months, I missed her very much and how better to celebrate her return home than making a nice frittata?

As usual I made the frittata with what I had one hand; duck bacon, broccoli, onions, garlic, chives and parmesan cheese. Our daughter was happily surprised by how good duck bacon is; I cooked the bacon beforehand before incorporating it into the egg mixture and I gave her a piece to taste; her eyes lit up and I would bet that she liked the duck bacon even more than ordinary bacon. The onions and garlic were slowly sautéed and the rest of the ingredients I mixed together in the bowl and then added to the pan once the onions and garlic were soft and translucent.

I bought quite a bit of fruit at the supermarket because not only are berries in season, our daughter also happens to love them. The pineapple is mainly for me; I have been craving pineapple for the past few weeks and I can’t seem to get enough of it.

I forgot to mention Jack in all this family reunion, he squealed with pure happiness when he saw our daughter and his tail was wagging a million miles an hour; it was going so fast it was a blur. The family is almost intact; as soon as our son gets back from gigging, we will be back together as a unit. I have noticed that Jack and I always seem happiest when we are all together under one roof.

Waking up with frittata on the brain

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eggs, frittata, postaday2014

Last night before falling asleep, I was going through the pantry and the refrigerator in my head, trying to come up with something to prepare for the baby boy as he stays home watching Jack our other baby. Being on the road as much as I have been, I haven’t really had the time to restock the refrigerator and the pantry, so I fell asleep thinking about food. I dreamt of food and somehow in all of that dreaming, frittata, spinach and ricotta came about. I woke up with frittata on the brain.

I, somewhere in the night, had remembered that I had two bags of fresh spinach in the crisper, I still had an unopened container of ricotta cheese and I still have onions and garlic plus eggs, bingo frittata. The spinach, ricotta mixture made, in my mind, a lot of sense for a frittata because spinach and ricotta make really good raviolis, so why not a frittata? It may be a stretch to go from ravioli to frittata, but spinach and eggs are lifelong friends so why not throw in some ricotta to make a nice trio of flavors.

I was busy getting these two frittatas together so I completely forgot to take pictures, but really most frittatas look alike, this one was nice and brown on the underside, because after being in the oven I flipped it out of the pan and onto the plate. If I had flipped it back to the right side, it would have been a nice fluffy yellow with the green of the spinach and the white of the ricotta.

I am happy to say that the baby boy, before we left, had a slice and he said that it was delicious. It is quite an amazing thing, that something relatively easy to make, can be so tasty. All it is basically, is chopping an onion, mincing a few cloves of garlic and sautéing them, throwing in a bag of fresh spinach and wilting it down. Meanwhile in a bowl whisk six eggs, throw in some half-n-half, along with a cup of ricotta, salt and pepper and when the sautéed stuff is ready, pour it in the pan and wait until it sets along the side. The oven was preheated to 350 and I put the pan in for about 8 minutes or until the top is set. Be very careful when you pull the pan out of the oven, I have burned my hands and my arm, I don’t know how many times, remember the towel or the mitt, anything to protect your exposed skin. And viola frittata time.

Getting busy in the kitchen

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almonds, apples, baking, cooking, frittata, postaday2013

Father’s Day is upon us and I was gearing up in the kitchen for the weekend. I decided to make the desserts tonight because tomorrow I have my hands full; what with weight class, a doctor’s appointment, shopping and more cooking.

My hubby asked for the apple tart that I had made when my sister and her kids were here at our house last. One of my favorite cookbooks is Patricia Wells “Bistro Cookbook” and she has a wonderful recipe called the apple and golden cream tart. I improvised it somewhat last time because I had extra almond creme and I added it as the base before laying down the apples in a rosette design and adding the custard afterwards. Actually the tart’s name can now be “apple, golden custard with an almond creme”. The almond creme is a basic component in French patisserie and all you need is equal amounts of room temperature butter, equal parts ground almond, equal parts sugar and an egg with a dash of flour.My hubby really liked the extra layer of flavor that the almond creme gave to the custard and the apples.

The kids have fallen in love with the frittata and since my gratin of potatoes was devoured last night. I figured another one would make them happy, I threw in garlic, onions and bacon; everything tastes better with bacon, and the eggs. Since I had the oven set at 375 because I had pre-baked the pie shells for the two tarts (I made two to make sure that the whole weekend is dessert filled) a frittata made perfect sense. At this point I had not burned myself, I was faithfully using my dish towels. When I took out the pan and inverted the frittata onto the plate, I still hadn’t burned myself. It happened when I had my dish towel in my left hand and used my right hand to put the pan into the sink. OWWWW! I tell you, how silly can someone be? I have the dish towel just not in the proper hand. I’m okay don’t worry. I melted a few ice cubes in my right hand palm for awhile. I still love baking even though I am a danger to myself.

Frittata is the treat of the day

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broccoli, chives, frittata, postaday2013, potatoes, wild strawberries

I was outside today taking care of the pool and the water situation and for some unknown reason I felt compelled to check to see if I had any wild strawberries growing and lo and behold, this is so exciting, I had at least three wild strawberries growing. It doesn’t take much to get me excited about nature. I’m even allergic to strawberries, but it doesn’t matter, I have organic strawberries growing in my garden around the pool. How good is that?

After I was done with the pool and my picture taking, I decided to make a potato, chive and garlic frittata. I think that frittata has become one of my favorite things to make, it is so easy and so delicious with minimal ingredients. I diced up four medium potatoes and sautéed them until they were golden and took them out of the pan and onto a paper towel. I preheated the oven to 350 and minced garlic which got thrown into an oven proof pan with olive oil. While that was on the heat, I cracked and whisked seven eggs together , added salt and pepper and threw them into the pan with the garlic. I added sliced chives that I got from my garden and then I added the sautéed potatoes. When the eggs were set on the bottom, I put the pan in the oven for about five minutes and I inverted the frittata onto a plate.

I made broccoli for myself, sautéed with garlic and olive oil, salt and pepper. I love broccoli, it’s filling and delicious.

How do you like them eggs?

Tags

baked eggs, creamed spinach, frittata, postaday2012

What’s your favorite way to cook eggs?

May 5, 2012

The Best Way to Prepare Eggs

Baked Eggs in Tomato-Parmesan Sauce

I like to serve eggs baked over a bed of creamed spinach with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese. I also love to make frittata’s, they are so versatile you can raid your refrigerator and throw whatever in your frittata and voila, dinner is served