50 Ways to Make a Frittata

June 21, 2015May 8, 2023 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 31 Comments

A few months ago, I was visiting Cleveland and took a cooking class at The Western Reserve School of Cooking. One of the dishes we made with owner and chef Catherine St. John was an oven-baked version of the classic Italian frittata. Frittatas can be served for any meal or as an appetizer. They are firm in texture and easily cut into squares when served at room temperature. They also provide a great way to use up leftovers.

Chef Catherine taught us to sauté the vegetables, pour them into a baking dish, add the egg and cheese mixtures, and bake for 20 minutes.

We have many eggs here at Judy’s Chickens, so we make this one-pot meal a lot!

After making this meal a few times, I developed a foolproof formula for making the dairy mixture of the frittata: 12 large eggs, 1/2 cup whole milk, cream, or ricotta, 1 heaping cup of shredded cheese, and 1/4 cup of Parmesan. Pour this over any medley of cooked vegetables that loosely fills your lasagna pan to about the one-inch mark.

Here’s a recipe to get you started.

Ingredients:

The Egg and Cheese Mixture:
12 large eggs
½ cup ricotta, whole milk, or cream
1 tsp salt
½ teaspoon pepper
¼ cup grated Parmesan
1 heaping cup of any cheese, shredded

The Veggie Mixture:
4 cups potatoes (about 4 medium or 1½ pounds), diced or shredded
1½ cups green onions with tops, about 5 sliced
½ red bell pepper, about ½ cup, seeded and diced
1 heaping tablespoon of minced garlic (from the jar is fine)
2 cups cooked leftover vegetables such as zucchini, summer squash, broccoli, or cauliflower, OR any uncooked greens such as spinach, chard, or kale
⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350º

Chop all the fresh veggies. I used buttery Yukon and red potatoes, sweet red bell pepper, green onions with stalks, and minced garlic.

Sauté garlic, onion, pepper, and potatoes in olive oil, on medium heat, in a 12-inch non-stick skillet for about 10 minutes or until the potatoes are tender but still firm.

Stir in drained leftover cooked veggies and heat until warm. I used leftover roasted zucchini and summer squash with green onions and garlic. Spread vegetable medley evenly in a lasagna pan.

Mix eggs, milk, cream or ricotta, Parmesan, salt, and pepper and pour over vegetables.

Add shredded cheese and poke it into the vegetables and egg mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes in a preheated oven. Insert the knife tip in the center to test for doneness. If it comes out clean, remove the frittata from the oven. If not, cook for another 5 minutes and check again. Repeat until done.

Another frittata version: potatoes, kale, green onion, zucchini, and a lone radish

This was one day’s pickings from the garden. I decided, as a trial, to throw all of it into the frittata along with dairy ingredients to see if it would work. I tried fresh kale. It was delicious.

Here it is, all prepped.

Here is how I prepped the vegetables:

Green onions

A lone watermelon radish

My first zucchini of the season!

Shredded potatoes

I trimmed the tough stem off each kale leaf.

I tore the leaves into 3-inch pieces, added them to the vegetable sauté last, and cooked them for one minute until wilted. Chard, collards, or spinach would also work well here. Be sure to remove the thick stems from the collards or chard.

Notice how when the frittata first comes out of the oven, it is like a soufflé, all puffed up and fluffy. It will fall after about 5 minutes. I think the frittata is tastiest when it is still light and fluffy like this, but as I have said, it is still excellent later in the day at room temperature or even cold from the fridge.

Once, I mixed a bunch of cheeses left over from a cookout and used them for the cheese portion of the recipe. This worked just fine.

Another frittata version: leftover ditalini pasta and roasted zucchini, summer squash, and leeks, with fresh, chopped mint

I increased the amount of cheese for this version:
12 eggs, 1/2 cup ricotta, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, 1 cup Parmesan, 2 cups mozzarella
4 cups cooked pasta, 4 cups roasted zucchini with leeks, 1/2 cup chopped mint

Prepping the mint

Prepping the mozzarella

The four stages of combining and baking the frittata:

Melty goodness!

Other delicious foods to serve at breakfast
Fruit and Nut Bread
The Biscuit King
Very Berry Clafoutis
Quiche Lorraine with Bacon and Kale
Sorghum, Seeds, and Grains Granola
How to Make Grape Jelly (and Grow the Grapes)

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Quiche Lorraine with Bacon and Kale

April 2, 2015January 7, 2019 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 12 Comments

Last year, our friends, Maribeth and Michael, hosted an impromptu and festive Easter Brunch. I volunteered to bring something eggy. The morning of the brunch, I looked at what I had in the fridge: eggs, cheese, and bacon, with green onions and kale growing in the backyard. I decided on quiches.

I had a Trader Joe’s pie crust in the freezer. All I needed from the grocery store was heavy cream. Easy-peasy. It doesn’t take much to make a quiche which is just a mixture of custard (eggs and cream), cheese, vegetables, bacon if desired, and pie crust. You can easily make do with what you have on hand: mushroom and onion, spinach and goat cheese, tomato and corn, whatever you have in the fridge. This week, I went for the kale and green onion version because once again, I had both growing in my winter garden.

The kale and green onions wintered-over under hoops covered with agricultural fabric as I described here.

Yield: This recipe makes 2 single-crust quiches.

Ingredients:
2 9 inch pie crusts (I love Trader Joe’s frozen pie crusts)
1 pound of bacon, crumbled
1 cup sliced green onions
1 cup chopped kale or spinach
1 cup Swiss cheese, shredded
1 cup Gruyere cheese, shredded
10 large eggs, beaten with a fork or blender
4 cups whole milk (ok), or half-and-half (better), or heavy cream (best!)
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
a pinch or two of freshly ground nutmeg

Mise en Place:

To prepare bacon:
Here’s an easy way to cook a pound of bacon without making a mess. Preheat oven to 375º. Place a sheet of parchment paper or foil on a 13 x 18-inch baking pan. Set the bacon on a cooling rack and place it over the lined baking pan. Cook bacon for about 15 minutes, or until golden brown. When done, throw parchment paper in the trash as soon as it is cool enough to handle, before it has a chance to stick to the bottom of the pan. No messy splatter to deal with or dirty pans.

Wash and slice green onions. Wash, spin, and chop kale leaves.

Instructions for putting it all together:

Preheat oven to 425º.

To make the custard: beat eggs together first and then add cream, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Place a single pie crust in each pie plate. Flute edges to make them look pretty. If using Trader Joe’s brand, keep the plastic wrap on the crust while you roll it out and transfer it from the countertop to the pie plate.

Layer pie ingredients as follows:
Bacon

Onions and Kale

Cheese

Egg Mixture

Bake pies at 425º to ensure that the pie crusts cook. Undercooked, doughy crusts are not very appetizing. After 20 minutes, lower the oven temperature to 350º to cook the custard interior. When you reduce the heat, take pies out of the oven and line their edges with foil or pie plate shields to keep crust rim from burning. Bake for about 25-30 minutes more. A knife inserted in the center should come out clean. Note to self: purchase another 9″ pie crust shield– they are so much easier to use than foil.

Let quiche rest about 15 minutes before serving. You can make the day before and reheat in the oven.

How big IS that egg, or a few words about egg sizes.

In the olden days, farmers would gather eggs from their hen houses and use this Jiffy Way Egg Scale to measure the egg’s weight and grade, from small to extra large, for marketing purposes.
My friend, Patty, gave me this scale with the marketing logo “DeKalb Chix” printed on it. I treasure it!

Our chicken eggs range in size from medium to extra large, so often times I have to weight them to get the right amount of eggs for a recipe.

Medium to extra-large.

A little more or less volume won’t matter with a quiche, but it would definitely matter with a cake or pastry recipe where the ratio of dry to liquid ingredients needs to be accurate. This recipe called for 20 ounces. I use my modern digital scale for weighing!

The more you know…

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Fruit and Nut Bread

March 14, 2015December 16, 2020 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 23 Comments

Okay, it’s a fruitcake!

I’ve been trying to figure out another name for this outrageously delicious bread that does not conjure up cross-sections of red and green candied cherries. Instead, these are the beautiful fruits and nuts that go into this bread.

Whenever I serve this bread, almost everyone asks for the recipe. I have been making some variation of it since I first adapted it from The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook, or “Silver Palate 2” as we called it back in the Eighties.

Every December, around Christmas time, I pull out all the half-used packages of dried fruit and unsalted nuts, weigh out 52 ounces of fruit and 28 ounces of nuts, and make this bread. The only dried fruit that is a must-have in the bunch is the prunes. You could say this is how I clean out my pantry every year.

Yield: Makes 3 loaves or 8 mini loaves

Ingredients:

52 ounces dried fruit: prunes, dates, cherries, raisins, and/or apricots
28 ounces nuts: pecans, almonds, and walnuts
½ cup all-purpose flour
6 eggs, room temperature, separated
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
grated zest of one orange
6 tablespoons butter, melted
5 tablespoons whipping cream
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
½ teaspoon almond extract
1½ cups whole wheat flour
2½ teaspoons baking powder

Instructions:

Prepare oven and pans:
Preheat oven to 325º.

Spray three 9x5x3 loaf pans lightly with cooking spray. Line each pan with aluminum foil. Butter the foil liner. We do this tedious process because the bread needs to cook for a long time at a low temperature. The foil keeps the loaves from drying out and sticking to the pans. As a test, I made two regular loaves and three mini loaves. I didn’t use foil on the mini loaves, and the bread stuck to the pans. I’m a believer. The reason you spray the pan before lining it with foil is for easy release of the foil-lined loaves after they have baked. These steps are all necessary. Believe me, I’m not one for make-work.

Measure fruit and nuts:
I keep large bags of dried fruits and nuts in the pantry. When it comes time to make this recipe, I pour a good mix of them into a bowl placed on a digital scale and keep adding more until the scale reads 3 pounds, 4 ounces. Then I pour in the nuts until the scale reads a total of 5 pounds.

Technique Time: Zeroing out a scale
A digital scale is a good tool to have in the kitchen. I recommend this one by OXO because it can weigh items up to 11 pounds. You’ll need to weigh the mixing bowl first and “zero out” that weight before adding the fruits and nuts. To do this, place the large empty bowl on the scale. This bowl weighs 5 pounds and 2.5 ounces. Push the “zero” button. The scale is now ready to show the weight of just the ingredients in the bowl.

Here is a list of the fruits and nuts I typically use :
16 oz prunes + 5 oz cherries + 6 oz apricots (cut each in half) +

8 oz raisins + 17 oz pitted dates (cut each in half) = total of 52 oz.

As for the nuts, I typically use 16 oz pecans + 8 oz walnuts + 4 oz slivered almonds = a total of 28 oz.

Next, add ½ cup of all-purpose flour and mix with your hands to break up the fruits that are stuck together. Make sure every morsel of food is dusted with the flour. This helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the pan while baking.

Prepare the batter

Separate the eggs into whites and yolks.

Beat egg whites on high speed in a clean, dry, mixing bowl until the whites puff up and form peaks. Don’t overbeat the egg whites. Use a rubber spatula to gently move the beaten whites to another bowl. Set aside.

Next, add the eggs and sugars to the mixing bowl. There is no need to wash the bowl first. Cream ingredients together for 2 minutes on medium-high speed.

Add the grated zest of one orange. To learn more about zesting citrus, go here.

Add melted butter, heavy cream, vanilla, and almond extract to the batter and mix for one minute on medium speed.

In a separate small bowl, use a whisk to mix the whole wheat flour and baking powder.

Add flour mixture to batter and stir gently for 30 seconds until ingredients are well-blended. Do not over mix.

Now you have a bowl of batter and a bowl of stiff egg whites.

Fold egg whites gently into the batter and blend until just mixed. This process of “folding in” the fluffed up egg whites makes your batter lighter.

Stir batter into the bowl with the fruits and nuts.

Pour batter evenly into three loaf pans. Use your fingers to create a mound down the midline of each loaf pan.

Bake loaves covered with a sheet of foil for the first 40 minutes.

After 40 minutes, remove foil and bake for another 40 minutes. Loaves will be medium brown in color when done. Oven temperatures vary, so check the color at 30 minutes. You can’t rely on the knife test to check for doneness because it continues to come out with crumbs on it, even when the loaves are done.

This bread freezes well. I found one in my freezer that was one and a half years old. When I thawed it, I was prepared to throw it out, but instead, it was perfectly delicious.

For other holiday ideas, check out the Holiday menu on the taskbar.

Other Quick Breads:
Marion’s Crazy Good Pumpkin Bread with Chocolate Chips
Ellen’s Most Moist Zucchini Bread
Cranberry Muffins with Orange Zest and Pecans
The Biscuit King

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@judyschickens Homemade Healthy Super-Delicious Granola, Revised

February 12, 2015June 22, 2023 ~ Judy's Chickens ~ 17 Comments

When I started making granola, our family couldn’t get enough of it. Yes, it was nutritionally dense and packed with protein, vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants, but it was also sweet and salty, making it addictive and high in calories.

I recently read Michael Moss’s bestseller, Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. He wrote, “To make a new soda guaranteed to create a craving requires the high math of regression analysis and intricate charts to plot what industry insiders call the “bliss point,” or the precise amount of sugar, fat or salt that will send consumers over the moon.” With the concept of the bliss point in mind, I began tailoring my recipe to reign in the salt and sugar content and decrease the calories. I made several batches to reach a healthier and tolerable bliss point.

[Now, in 2023, I have completely eliminated the brown sugar. I’ve also eliminated the ground flax and chia seeds.]

Here is a list of the dry ingredients and their corresponding nutritional attributes (starting with the bowl of coconut at the top of the photo):

Coconut: fiber, iron, zinc
Pecans: antioxidants, vitamin E, protein
Craisins: antioxidants, fiber
Ground Flax Seed: omega 3’s, fiber, protein & lignans
Raw Pumpkin (pepitas) Seeds: magnesium, zinc, omega 3’s
Wheat Germ: vitamin E & folic acid
Raw Sunflower Seeds: vitamin E & magnesium
Almonds: protein, fiber, vitamin E, minerals
Old-Fashioned Rolled Oats: lowers LDL cholesterol, fiber
Chia seeds: high in fiber and protein

Ingredients:

8 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
2 cups wheat germ (half a jar)
1 cup raw or roasted, unsalted sunflower seeds
1 cup raw, unsalted pepita seeds (green pumpkin seeds)
2 cups roughly chopped pecans or walnuts
1 cup sliced almonds
1 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons sea salt
⅔ cup extra-virgin olive oil
⅔ cup sorghum syrup (or honey)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup hot water
2 cups dried cranberries

Yield: 4.5 pounds

Preheat oven to 250º

Mix the oats, wheat germ, pepita and sunflower seeds, nuts, coconut, cinnamon, dried cranberries, and salt in a large bowl.

Into a 4-cup liquid measure, add olive oil, sorghum, hot water and vanilla. Whisk until well blended.

Add liquid ingredients to dry and stir immediately until all ingredients are uniformly coated.

Pour mixture into two 13″ by 18″ rimmed baking pans.

Bake for one hour, stirring every 20 minutes. The granola will become crunchy as it cools. Store in an airtight container when cooled.

A tasty and nutritious breakfast:

I enjoy having a half cup of granola with simple-to-make homemade plain yogurt or kefir for breakfast. Kefir is a slightly sour probiotic drink that has the consistency of liquid yogurt. If you add berries to the top, it’s like eating a sundae for breakfast!

Related Breakfast Posts
Fruit and Nut Bread
The Biscuit King
The Navel Mary Way: How to Peel an Orange

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