Frittata

I know we've both posted about frittata, but this one is a little different for me. I saw it in Parade magazine in last Sunday's paper. It includes stale bread cubes, which give it a little French toastie personality, and it doesn't get watery the way it can with potatoes. I used one cup of bread cubes to six eggs. Delicious for a light dinner, and very good the next day as well.

Appetizers

We had a progressive dinner with Mary Ellen and friends last night. Appetizers and wine were at our place, then we progressed over to her house for the main course.

My repertoire was limited to foods I had on hand--I did NOT want to go to the store on Valentine's Day while people were scrambling for flowers and chocolate at the last minute. I ended up with marinated carrots; empanadas with a filling of spinach, currants, pine nuts, and a little goat cheese to bind; and a frittata with green chiles.

I boiled the carrots in salted water until barely tender, then marinated them for a few hours in olive oil, wine vinegar, fresh thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper. They were a nice change from richer things, and colorful as well.

Elaine made a fabulous lamb-meatball-and-spaghetti dish with Middle Eastern seasonings. She was on a TV cooking show and won a prize for it. Maybe she'll share the recipe here!

Easiest Frittata

The oven is still broken. So I made a frittata out of a potato, an onion, rosemary, parsley, oregano, and four eggs. And lots of pepper.

I cooked the cubed potatoes separately in the microwave to soften them before browning them with the onions.

I usually use the broiler to brown the top, but with no oven, I had to flip the entire frittata to cook the other side. It worked, miraculously.

We ate it with some of Lawson's habanero-carrot salsa. He made a new batch this past week.

Spinach Frittata

Susan made this delicious spinach frittata for us for breakfast. She started it in a huge skillet and finished it in the oven. It was seasoned with tarragon, very unusual but just perfect. We got to take the last piece with us on the road for a mid-morning snack.