Leftover Frittata

I hate leftovers.  My mom can tell you that nothing makes me grumble more than next-day, reheated food.  Dudley, on the other hand, LOVES leftovers, as does Hank.  To them, it's double your pleasure, double your fun.  It's extra innings baseball.  It's wonderful.  Here's the catch, I don't mind leftovers if they're reconstructed in a different form.  In fact, I'm always amazed at things like bread pudding, soups, and casseroles that manage to make last night's meat and vegetables a new and delicious dinner.  That's how we arrived at the frittata for dinner the other night.  I get home from class sort of late sometimes and there definitely isn't time to go all out for dinner.  The night before I'd made pork tenderloin with leeks and roasted potatoes for dinner.  There were eggs in the fridge.  There you have it -- a frittata for dinner. 

You will need:

8 large eggs

1/4 c milk

olive oil or butter

~ 1/2 lb of meat (or extra veggies)

~ 1 onion, diced 

~ 1 red pepper, diced

extra veggies

 cheese

salt & pepper

• Saute your onions and pepper with salt and pepper until translucent.  Remove from the pan and cool.  
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
• Vigorously whisk together eggs, add milk and combine.  Season with salt and pepper.
• Meanwhile, heat a large, ovenproof skillet (I prefer nonstick but my dad uses a cast iron skillet to great effect) over medium heat with olive oil or butter (enough to make sure that the eggs don't stick).
• Add the egg mixture to the pan, top with meat of your choice.  I added diced, roasted potatoes at this point because I had them.  The point is that you can put almost anything in the fritatta and it will be delicious.
• Cook the eggs on the stovetop until the bottom is set.  Add cheese (as much as you like, I used cheddar but goat cheese would be oh-so-good!). OK, at this point, a lot of people prefer to use the broiler to finish off the frittata.  My oven here is pretty old and it's nearly impossible to tell what temperature the oven is at.  Basically, I was afraid to ruin my dinner by using the broiler and burning my eggs.  I cooked it for about another 10 minutes at 375 degrees until the cheese was melted and the top was set and it was just fine.  If you want to go the broiler route, preheat the broiler and blast it for about 2-4 minutes until the top is set.  I didn't notice that my eggs were rubbery or suffered from having cooked longer though.

  

I also love an asparagus frittata with a little bit of ham and cheese -- it's so delicious with a glass of wine and a nice loaf of bread.  But, because this is basically a beefed up omelette, you can put anything that you can think of in it.  Just be sure that if it's a watery vegetable (such as zucchini or onion, tomato etc) that you cook it first so that your eggs aren't a watery mess!