[30] Vegetable Frittata

I’m pretty sure this book is available at “Amazon.com”:http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2F&tag=metaco-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=390957, but it’s not immediately obvious. I guess that, despite it clearly being nationally published and such, it’s still one of the more obscure books in our collection. And we have two from this “collection”. I would link directly to the suspected book, but there’s NO information about it there, so I don’t see the point. Please let me know in the comments if you disagree.

Anyway, this is the book that first introduced me to the frittata. As mentioned in our “About”, I went on to make a lot of them. This recipe makes it clear that they’re very easy, and can be quite healthy. Also, amazingly, tasty!

Unless you’re my good friend, Maria-Sea. She’s just going to skip straight over this recipe, since she thinks the taste of eggs is gross.

The only thing about this recipe that is difficult, for me, is remembering that it calls for COOKED potatoes. I rarely have potatoes on hand anyway, and cooked potatoes don’t last long enough to make it into another recipe.

h2. Ingredients

4 eggs
2 egg whites

salt and pepper

1 tsp olive oil

1 onion, coarsely chopped

1 clove garlic, minced

1 green bell pepper, seeds removed and minced

1 zucchini, sliced thickly

8 oz cooked diced potatoes

1 tomato, coarsely chopped

0.5 c reduced fat mozzarella, grated

h2. Instructions

Beat the eggs and egg whites in a bowl, then season with salt and pepper.

Heat the oil in a large, non-stick, oven-safe skillet, then add the onion, garlic and green bell pepper. Cook for 5 minutes, or until softened, then add the zucchini and potatoes and cook until lightly browned (another 5 – 10 minutes). Stir in the tomato. At some point while all of this is cooking

Preheat your broiler, then pour the egg mixture over all this, and cook over low heat for 5 – 10 minutes, until the eggs are mostly set, but the top is still runny. Sprinkle the cheese over the top, then transfer the pan to the broiler. Cook until the top is set and the cheese is melting and begun to brown. Serve hot.

h2. Cooking and Consumption Notes

h3. Cooking

The book forgets to specify that you need an oven-safe skillet for this recipe. If you’re like me now, that’s not much of a problem. However, if you’re like me back when I got this cookbook, it’s a real problem. It took a lot of years for me to learn to read through an entire recipe, preferably more than once, before starting to cook it. (And, honestly, I still go off on a cooking tear without reading through. The difference is that, these days, I rarely regret it utterly.) I love my cast-iron for this, but all of my current skillets are oven-safe. The book also doesn’t specify size. I’d guess the recipe would work best in a skillet that’s between 8″ and 10″ in diameter, inclusive.

If you don’t own a cheese grater (because you, like Bill and I, are a big dork), that’s fine. Cheese can be chopped fairly finely for this. It might not melt quite as nicely, but who cares? It’s still delicious cheese combined with delicious veggies, bound together by delicious eggs!

h3. Consumption

If you have cooked potatoes on hand, this is a super fast and easy recipe. A total work-night meal, I’d say, though it might depend on your knife skills. I’m still pretty slow at chopping, despite more and more experience in the kitchen. I’m not sure what that’s about.

However, it’s basically a one-pot meal that’s easy and tasty. So even if you, like me, are slow with a knife it might be worth it to make this frittata.

Frittatas are also supremely flexible about what you toss in them. Don’t have tomatoes? No biggie, just skip it or toss in something else. And that’s basically true for everything in this frittata. These days, when I’m not obsessively searching my cookbooks for recipes to cook, I often make a frittata by looking in the fridge for veggies that need to be used and a hunk of cheese. Chop, beat some eggs, throw it all together, cook, sprinkle on some cheese, broil, devour.

Good starter recipe, I’d say.

2 thoughts on “[30] Vegetable Frittata

  1. I love me some fritattatatatataa. I avoided making them for awhile because I had an impression they were fussy, but now I’m over it.

    On the potato front, if the bags of almost-ready hashbrowns are on sale in the supermarket, I pick up a couple and toss them in the freezer for the next time I want to make a frittattatta (can’t help myself). I defrost the hashbrowns on the day of cooking and put them in my cast iron pan to get started while I’m cutting up the veg for my frittata (much.self.control.). Then, I flip the hashbrowns before adding the other ingredients and topping it all off with egg and cheese.

    I learned this from my mum’s friend Jancie who has never steered me wrong in the kitchen.

    • I hadn’t thought of pre-cooked potatoes. That’s a good idea. Honestly, I never have them in the house, so I just kind of forgot their existence.

      My freezer, however, is so packed right now that I cannot put anything into it. I struggled on Friday to put in a pint of tomato sauce. It may’ve taken a good 5 minutes. I think this might be an argument for a second freezer.

      Also do you have to have self-control in putting in too much or not enough veggies?

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