A while back, I was complaining to a friend that, due to sucking at pie crust, I don’t make quiche. Even though I really like it. And she said to me “Oh, honey… Make fritata!”
Me: Isn’t that some kind of omlet?
Her: Nuh-uh. It’s quiche without the crust part. Totally easy.
Me: Huh…
So tonight I’m making a dish that is somewhere between fritata and, say, strata[1], and using goodies from my garden to do it.
What I’ve done:
Preheated the oven to 325F
Buttered a 9×9 square pan
Chopped up three slices of bread into quarters and layered them over the bottom of the pan
Distributed about 13-14 cherry tomatoes, halved over the bread
Spread 6 rainbow chard leaves, steamed over the tomatoes (so that everythign is pretty-well covered)
Thrown a layer of sliced button mushrooms (about six) over everything
Beaten six eggs with about 1/4 tsp each: garlic salt, black pepper, and paprika and poured them over everything else.
Diced up about 1/8 C mild[2] cheddar and sprinkled it over everything.
Put it in the oven to bake.
~*~
I’m assuming this will take about half an hour, but it may take considerably less time (since getting my oven repaired last month I’ve been having to guess at cook-times even more than usual).
Note: I actually used four eggs, but that didn’t make quite enough egg-mixture, so I’ve upped the numbers in the recipe I’m presenting here.
I’m really pleased to have been able to provide most (not all – only 10 of the 14) cherry tomatoes and all of the chard thanks to our wee balcony garden. Part of me is kicking myself for not adding some fresh basil at the same time, but I think it’ll be fine without it.
We’ll be enjoying it with the last of a rosee that my sweetie took on a camping trip.
If this works, I’ll probably do more fritata-type things in future (it’s a good way to throw lots of veggies into a meal all at once), most likely using frozen veggie-medleys that get billed as appropriate for stir-fries and similar. Stuff with peppers and asparagus and other fancy goodies already mixed in.
Anyway. We’ll see how it goes.
TTFN,
Meliad the Birch Maiden.
[1] That thing where you layer eggs, bread, cheese and, sometimes meat or fruit and then bake it.
[2] Who eats mild cheddar?? But we had it, so clearly we do…
Urban Meliad 