Category Archives: Eggs

Pound-of-Greens Frittata

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A frittata is one of the nicest traveling foods I know.  We made this one tonight and the leftovers will accompany me and my sister on a very Pacific Northwest-y adventure with the kids tomorrow involving ferry boats and beachcombing.

Now that CSA season is underway, packing veggies densely into every meal becomes more urgent than ever.  This frittata will help you to dispatch an onion, an enormous bunch of chard (including stems), and a bunch of spinach–or whatever equivalent greens you need to use up this week.  My bunch of chard actually weighed a pound by itself, but “24-oz-of-Greens Frittata” just doesn’t have the same ring.

The first trick here is to cook the greens very well, until they give up most of their moisture and it evaporates.  The second is to season the vegetables well before adding them to the eggs.  When you combine the soft cooked greens with half a dozen eggs, the resulting frittata is moist and rich.  Not a bad way to eat a pound of greens. Continue reading Pound-of-Greens Frittata (click for recipe)

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Sweet Corn Scramble

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What does the inside of your fridge look like?  If I could peek inside, what would it tell me about you?

My fridge is always packed to the gills. Grains, flours, beer at the back. Root vegetables, sometimes of indeterminate age, in the bottom.  Cheeses in a drawer.  Condiments piled (piled, I say!) into the top shelf and door.  Milk and yogurt up front.  And everywhere else: more vegetables, so many vegetables, and leftovers.

It’s a reflection of who I am in many ways: it says that I like food.  That I’m a packrat, maybe, but also an optimist, thinking I’ll cook dinner six nights a week and always snack on vegetable spears instead of the kids’ cheese and crackers.  It is not the fridge of a meal-planner; instead, our meals are often dictated by what’s in the fridge rather than the other way around.

But this week, after coming home from a trip, there’s not much in the fridge.  It’s rather refreshing.  It’s so easy to see the back wall.  But it won’t last, because both of our CSAs start this week.  (Another personality/fridge correlation: the kind of person likely to sign up for two CSAs is the kind of person likely to have an overflowing fridge.)

In the meanwhile, it’s an opportunity to let a few great ingredients shine.

I usually scramble my eggs by letting the bottom layer set then rumpling it up along the bottom of the pan so the uncooked egg runs off  and also sets, then I turn the eggs over briefly.  How do you do yours?  I never gave any thought to scrambling eggs until I tried this “poached scrambled eggs” method, and then I read Julia Child saying not to touch them for the first three minutes, and now I’m wondering what other techniques are out there that never would have occurred to me.  This is an important question in my life because, as you know, I rely heavily on scrambled eggs. Continue reading Sweet Corn Scramble (click for recipe)

Eggs with Chiles, Chips and Cheese

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This is a five-minute breakfast or dinner that is worth knowing about.  It’s a quickie version of my favorite migas.  (I can’t believe that recipe isn’t on this site yet.  I owe you!)  I like it party because, as you can imagine, scrambled eggs with tortilla chips and cheese is alwlays an easy sell with the kids.  But mostly I like it because the adult version features roasted green chiles, a magical food.

My brother, provider of magical roasted green chiles, passed through town yesterday and brought little container of them.  If there had been more I would have made that queso fundido again, but under the circumstances we just tossed them into our breakfast.  I love how just a little bit of an excellent ingredient can elevate an ordinary dish like scrambled eggs.  I know that the world has accepted scrambled eggs with truffles or caviar as luxury food.  I submit that roasted green chiles belong in the same category. Continue reading Eggs with Chiles, Chips and Cheese (click for recipe)

Smoked Salmon Spaghetti alla Carbonara with Spicy Peppers

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There are currently only three chickens in our backyard flock: Ducky, Feather, and Feather.  Yes, two Feathers, both black.  I’ll gloss over the details of what happened to the original black Feather, and just tell you that when we got chicks the following spring, my oldest exclaimed in delight: “This time we have two Feathers!”  And so we do.

The Girls (by which, at the moment, I mean the three chickens, not the three little girls who live inside with us; it does get confusing sometimes) usually keep us amply supplied with eggs.  Today we had run out, though, so I was pleased that an afternoon visit to the coop yielded the two eggs I needed to make this recipe.  Taking fresh-laid eggs straight to the table never gets old for me.

This recipe is inspired by the Carbonara with Mama Lil’s Peppers on Michael Natkin’s delightfully-named vegetarian blog Herbivoracious (and check out his new Herbivoracious cookbook as well).  I love Mama Lil’s Peppers and think they’re an inspired addition to pastas, pizzas, antipasto plates, and much more.  (I even gave J a jar of the spicy ones as part of his Fathers Day present.  But use the mild ones for this recipe!)  A vegetarian carbonara is untraditional, of course–usually it gets a hit of smoky salt from bacon–and I departed from Michael’s departure from tradition by adding hot-smoked salmon instead. Continue reading Smoked Salmon Spaghetti alla Carbonara with Spicy Peppers (click for recipe)

Easy Cheddar and Onion Egg Bake for a Crowd

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Now that I have confessed that I have a minivan, I might as well tell you about another way in which I’ve become an old fogey without even noticing: these days, I like having parties in the morning.  The kids are in good moods, the house hasn’t been wrecked yet by the the daily tornado of  family life, and you can drink mimosas.  But most of all, brunch is such an easy meal to prepare for a crowd.  All you need are big bowl of fruit, a cake (or two, in the case of J’s recent birthday) these eggs, and lots and lots of coffee.

This dish, or something like it, is one of the easiest ways I know to cook up a dozen or more eggs at once.  You can vary the filling by adding any vegetables, cheese, or meat you’d like.  I kept this one simple because I love the flavor combination of sharp cheddar and cooked-until-sweet onions…and also, I will admit, because monochromatic foods are usually a hit with the kids and we were expecting many, many kids. Continue reading Cheddar and Onion Egg Bake for a Crowd (click for recipe)

Fast Food: Tomato and Mozzarella Frittata with Greens

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Eggs are the original fast food, as far as I’m concerned.  I have been reasonably successful in cooking other things too lately, but that doesn’t mean that eggs don’t continue to make a regular appearance on our table (often shortly after they make their appearance in our backyard chicken coop).  Here’s the glorious thing about an egg: treated properly, it elevates any hodgepodge of leftover vegetables into a meal.  Think of those chard stems!

So odds and ends often end up in little single-serving frittatas around here.  To anyone who thinks they don’t have time to cook, I say, get an 8″ cast iron skillet.  Two eggs, a few generous handfuls of vegetables, a pinch of salt and your meal is ready in ten minutes.  And you know as well as I do that eggs aren’t just for breakfast.  Fancy them up like this and you can serve them for any meal of the day.

The usual rule applies: use what you have.  I was working with leftovers from that arugula salad I kept making, but you might have other tidbits in your fridge.  The eggs cook quickly, so you’ll want to briefly cook most of the other ingredients first, then add the eggs.  I usually cook the veggies, add the eggs for a few minutes, sprinkle a bit of cheese on top, and then broil the pan for minute or two to set the eggs.  Fresh herbs are nice sprinkled on top after cooking (basil would have been perfect here if I had it).  Usually I’d say to avoid wet ingredients like tomatoes on top of a frittata, but this little one cooks so fast that they don’t have time to melt into a juicy mess.

So keep this little preparation in mind.  Next time you find yourself considering a fast food order, see if you have an egg handy first.

Continue reading Tomato and Mozzarella Frittata with Greens (click for recipe)

Single-Serving Frittata with Mushrooms, Arugula, and Feta

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I am not a morning person.

On weekdays I often scramble downstairs just as J is walking out the door.  He and the girls have been up and dressed for an hour, breakfast is over, art projects are often underway.  I burst onto the scene and immediately start searching for three tiny pairs of shoes and three even tinier pairs of socks so I can herd the kids straight out the door to get my oldest to kindergarten.  Which starts at almost 9.  This should not be a hardship.  (In my defense, my baby has been waking up all night long lately, and so have I.  But, honestly, I’d be sleeping until the last possible second no matter what.)

I am pleased to see to my family’s sweet faces in the morning, of course, but you know what else I’m always happy to see?  COFFEE.  J, inexplicably, does not drink coffee.  Which is either virtuous or insane.  But he does make it for me, a perfect French press pot of dark roast beans, ready to plunge the moment I get downstairs.  It is an act of love.

So maybe now you’re thinking that this should be a coffee recipe, but I only have one and it only involves glossy, dark-roasted coffee beans and hot water, plus maybe a pinch of cinnamon or cardamom in the grounds–try that!  Instead, my point here is that sometime it is rather late in the day before I get around to breakfast. 

A single-serving frittata is a great way to get your vegetables in at breakfast.  You can also make a big batch in muffin tins to grab on your way out the door all week, have you tried that?  I am usually not that organized, so today I made mine in my 8″ cast iron skillet.  You can use any small ovenproof skillet, or even one that’s not ovenproof, since a frittata this small is easy to flip and finish on the stovetop.

The key here, as far as I’m concerned, is to load up on the vegetables, using the egg to just hold it all together.  And since I actually used egg whites this time instead of whole eggs (the yolks went into the crust for mini Strawberry-Rhubarb cornmeal tarts), I made sure that all my ingredients were extra-flavorful and well-seasoned.  Egg whites are a great source of protein, but flavor?  Not so much.  Enter savory mushrooms, peppery arugula, and salty feta–now we’re talking. 

Continue reading Frittata with Mushrooms, Arugula, and Feta (click for recipe)

Baked Chard Stems with Tomato, Garlic, and Parmesan

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I find particular satisfaction in making something from not-so-much.  I save my Parmesan rinds to add depth of flavor to lentil soups.  I save my vegetable trimmings make homemade broth.  And when I made those risotto-filled chard rolls, I saved the chard stems to make this dish.

I often cook chard stems right along with their leaves, chopping them into confetti and sauteing them with onions and garlic before adding the glistening green leaves to my pan.  And I sometimes chop the stems up for my stock-trimmings bag in the freezer if I only have a few of them.  But chard stems are a delicious vegetable on their own, with a sweeter flavor than the leaves and a bit of crunch or chew, depending on how long you cook them.

This recipe is a longstanding family favorite.  It comes from Jack Bishop’s A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen, which I once checked out of the library.  (I love getting cookbooks from the library.)  I sauce things up by increasing the tomato and often serving a poached egg on top, but you can do what you like.  I also usually serve the sauteed chard leaves alongside if I didn’t already use them up to make chard rolls.

This is one of those nice dishes where the end product seems to be more than the sum of its parts. We are about equally likely to make it for breakfast, lunch, or dinner.  Which will you do?

Continue reading Baked Chard Stems with Tomato, Garlic, and Parmesan (click for recipe)

Poached Scrambled Eggs, or, The 40-Second Breakfast

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And here is where I abandon all pretense of not making scrambled eggs.  (For those of you too lazy to click, let me just share that this blog started as an attempt to motivate myself to cook something besides scrambled eggs for dinner all the time.)  I made these for breakfast, but you?  You who have made no promises about making scrambled eggs for dinner could certainly get away with serving these as a light supper, maybe drizzled with a nice olive oil and sprinkle of herbs, alongside a crisp salad.

Sometimes you just need something simple.  This is simple.  Perfectly textured scrambled eggs, no added fat, negligible clean-up, 20 seconds of egg-whisking plus 20 seconds of cooking.  Courtesy of that Genius Recipes feature I love from Food52.

Continue reading Poached Scrambled Eggs (click for recipe)

Roasted Broccoli Pizza with Feta Cheese and Eggs

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It’s been much too long since we’ve had a pizza recipe on this site.  Weeks!  I hope that you’ve been carrying on with your weekly homemade pizza night–do you have one of those?  If not, do you have another special meal that you serve on a regular basis?

Whether homemade pizza is an occasional or regular indulgence for you, here’s a recent favorite of mine.  Roasty-toasty broccoli, creamy-salty feta, perfect saucy egg on top.  You might have to work on the timing to get your egg cooked perfectly to your liking, but in my setup (long-preheated 550 oven, hot pizza stone, thin homemade crust) the egg is still just perfectly runny at the moment that my crust crisps up, after about 5 minutes in the oven.  Now that’s good fast food.

Sunnyside-up pizza not your thing?  Have you noticed that pizza has its whole own category over there on the sidebar menu?  Click it for more pizza inspiration! 

Continue reading Roasted Broccoli Pizza with Feta Cheese and Eggs (click for recipe)