First Attempt at a Frittata

Adventures of a Cast Iron Skillet

Since Grandma got me a cast iron skillet, I’ve been really excited about trying it out as my friend easily discovered after simply looking at my Pinterest account. The first thing that I did was use it when we had a rare beef night on Saturday.

Meijers had these little beef filets wrapped in bacon on sale two for $4. I knew this wouldn’t be something Kevin would want so I bought the two little steaks for myself and a pound of beef along with a can of sloppy Joe makings for him. I also bought a Vidalia onion to go with my steak after Mom pointed them out and told me they were super tasty and only around for a limited amount of time. Per the website, they’re around from “late April through mid September.”

Anyways, I carmelized the chopped up tear-inducing onion in my cast iron and threw my mini steak on the George Foreman grill. The onion slices were wonderful! They had a sweet flavor, less of an onion sharpness than you might be used to experiencing. The bites of steak that weren’t fat were really tasty. I’m going to leave it at that.

And Kevin couldn’t tell the difference between the Meijers’ brand, low sodium sloppy Joe mix and the Manwich brand I usually get–small victories!

Anyways, I think the mistake I made with my cast iron was that I didn’t “wash” it right away with an oil laden cloth as the care instruction said, instead waiting for the next day. That next day being frittata day, I should have reseasoned the pan before using it.

Frittata

I’ve seen a lot of these dishes both online and in some of my cookbooks and they seem to be a good staple dish to learn. So I decided to give it a go.

Some recipes call for making it exclusively on the stove while others call for a combo of stovetop and oven. I decided to do the later so I could use my cast iron.

I decided to heat up a little bit of olive oil in the bottom of the skillet because I figure it wouldn’t hurt to try to help the eggs not stick. After it had heated up, I put my leftover onions, some baby spinach, and a bunch of pre-cooked, diced ham into the skillet, making sure that these ingredients were warmed up.

At this point, I realized that I’d need to preheat my oven if I had any hope of using it, so I set the dial at 400 degrees.

In a separate bowl, I beat six eggs with a splash of milk and dashes of salt and pepper. I then poured this over my fillings. As you can see in the slightly blurry photo above, I realized I forgot the cheese (I had mean to stir it into the egg bowl), so I dumped some shredded provolone on top.

While the eggs cooked, I used a spatula to attempt to gently lift the semi cooked portions of egg up so that the rest could hit the hot pan and start to cook as well. Once it was mostly firm, I used an oven mitt to put the skillet in the oven. After the proposed five minutes, it still wasn’t quite done, so I put it back in the oven for three more minutes.

This time, my frittata was cooked through.

Sadly, it didn’t come out of the pan in one, pretty pie shaped piece like the picture that I had seen. I don’t know if it was because I hadn’t cleaned my skillet properly or because I didn’t cook it correctly, put too much milk in it, put too many fillings in it…I’m not sure.

But, thankfully, it did turn out super tasty and I didn’t burn it. It might not be what I imagined, but at leat the end result was a tasty pile of eggs and fillings.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 6 eggs
• 2 tbs milk
• salt and pepper, to taste
• ham
• caramelized onions
• spinach
• provolone

Note

A frittata is a very versatile thing. Feel free to experiment with any number of different filling combinations.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Heat filling components (excluding cheese) in your oven safe skillet. If your fillings are still raw, cook them in this phase
3. Beat eggs, milk, and seasonings in a medium bowl, pour over filling mixture in skillet; add cheese to top of mixture in skillet or mix in with your eggs before pouring in skillet
4. Using a spatula, periodically lift egg mixture as it sets to make sure all of the egg gets cooked
5. Once eggs have mostly set, use an oven mitt or pot holder to transfer skillet to the oven to cook for 5-10 minutes, until the eggs are cooked through

Cracker Barrel

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but breakfast is my favorite! Most days, I could be happy having breakfast three meals a day. Mom and I go out for breakfast every Saturday after our Weight Watchers meeting, but otherwise I’m eating breakfast at home.

Last Monday, I woke up with the stomach bug, so my relationship with food wasn’t normal. I went back to work on Tuesday, but I didn’t consider my belly “normal” until Thursday.

When we went out Wednesday night, Mom thought that breakfast food might be a little gentler on my stomach than the butter chicken she had previously planned on making. We decided on Cracker Barrel because we haven’t been there for a long time since it’s on the other end of town.

Now, Cracker Barrel does have non-breakfast food options, but when I go to a restaurant that specializes in breakfast, you can pretty much guarantee that that’s what I’m having.

There’s something specific that I get practically every single time that I go there, but I always peruse their menu and I have tried a couple of other things. Part of me really wants to try their chicken and dumplings and their eggs-in-the-basket, but I know I’d miss my usual.

My usual being a country ham and cheddar omelet with hashbrown casserole.

I know that’s something really simple and that omelets aren’t even on the menu, but they make them just right! You can choose from country or honey ham and I’ve always preferred the salty kind (because I love my arteries…). The eggs are thin and cooked just right and they stuff it full of chunks of ham and melty cheese!

And the hashbrown casserole…I could eat a giant bowl of that and be happy! I love hash browns in most forms, but there’s something about they way they make–chewy and tender and crunchy with so much flavor.

Mom decided to pick something off of the non-breakfast menu and went with meatloaf. She had hashbrown casserole, fried okra, and fried apples as her sides. She shared everything but the fried okra because I don’t like okra. The meatloaf was great–wonderful flavor and texture and how can you go wrong with something like fried apples?

If you haven’t tried this casserole, you’re missing out. If you follow the link attached to the picture of casserole, it’ll take you to a page with a recipe of their version of this dish.

And don’t forget to check out their store and the rocking chairs outside!

Cheesy Potato and Ham Crescent Rolls

On Sunday, I decided to revisit Thanksgiving Leftovers. They were, once again, quite delicious.

Now, what does one do when one doesn’t have leftover ham and potatoes for this recipe? I bought some pre-cooked, cubed ham from Meijers (you should be able to find it by the ham steaks). I also had a coupon for two packets of Betty Crocker instant mashed potatoes. I picked roasted garlic and cheddar.

After cooking the potatoes in the microwave, I added nearly a pound of cubed ham and then I decided to alter the original recipe some by adding half a block of cream cheese into my bowl of ham and potatoes.

These were wonderful. I think I’ll add an entire block of cream cheese next time and maybe some shredded cheese.

Cheesy Potato and Ham Crescent Rolls

Ingredients

• 1 pd cubed ham
• 1 cooked packet of Betty Crocker instant potatoes
• 1/2 block of cream cheese
• 2 cans Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (I used the 1/3 less fat variety)

Directions

1. Mix all ingredients, except crescent rolls, in a bowl.
2. Arrange crescent rolls so that two triangles are together, forming a rectangle (you will wind up with 8 rectangles). Press the seams together.
3. Place a spoonful of filling in the middle of each rectangle and then pull up the corners to surround the filling and seal the seams.
4. Bake a 375 for 10-15 minutes.

Thanksgiving Leftovers

Unlike the vast majority of Americans, I didn’t make a turkey or even the typical feast on Thanksgiving. Instead, I prepared a little precooked ham, some homemade mashed potatoes, frozen bread sticks, and a little can of creamed corn.

It wasn’t anything fancy, but it was good.

Cooking Note: When heating up a precooked ham, put in a baking dish with about a half cup of water and cover with foil. Then put it in the oven for around 30 minutes. I put mine in for 20 minutes and it was lukewarm to cold by the time we sat down to eat it.

But we also wound up with a lot of leftover ham. Ham for days isn’t a bad thing because, well, I like ham and I like eating leftovers; having leftovers is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving. My husband, on the other hand, doesn’t eat a lot of leftovers.

This brought me to the dilemma of how to make ham and potatoes more appealing for him so that all of it would get eaten.

Yesterday, I remembered that I had bought a two pack of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls. I also remembered that it seems like there’s a very real possibility that everything tastes good when stuffed in a crescent roll.

Except, perhaps, things like gummy bears.

So, when I got home, I told my husband that I was planning on putting cheese and ham in some crescent rolls.

In response, he said, “what about the potatoes?”

Hmmm…what about the potatoes, indeed?

After popping open one container of roll dough, I decided to leave them in twos. Two crescent rolls left attached = one square/rectangle that is easier to stuff.

When doing this, try to make sure that you press the seams together to try to prevent food from escaping while it’s baking.

After setting the oven to preheat at 375 degrees, I filled each with two small spoonfuls of mashed potatoes, which I sprinkled with salt and pepper; a pinch of mild cheddar cheese; and ripped up pieces of ham.

I put these on a baking sheet lined with Reynolds Parchment Paper and then baked them for what wound up being a total of 12 minutes.

These were super tasty, but still a little doughy. So, in the future, I think I’ll bake them for 15 minutes instead. Also, I think it would be good to mix up chopped up ham and shredded cheese into the mashed potatoes to use to stuff the rolls instead of just layering them like I did.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1 package of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls
• Precooked ham; I didn’t have the honey variety
• Shredded cheese; I used mild cheddar
• Already prepared mashed potatoes
• Salt & pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. Line baking sheet with parchment paper and use as your work surface. Once you’ve opened the crescent rolls you’ll find that 2 rolls together create a square/rectangle. Spread these out and pinch the seams that connect the two together
3. In a bowl, gently mix together the rest of the ingredients
4. Using a spoon place portions of your filling into the middle of your squares of crescent dough. Then, fold the ends of the dough together and over the filling so that there aren’t any openings
5. Bake for about 15 minutes depending on your oven

Cooking Note: As you can tell, I didn’t really measure anything when I made this the other day. Use however much and whatever type of ham and cheese and potatoes you want. Also, one pack of crescent rolls yields 4 pockets of ham goodness.

The next time that I make these, I don’t think I’m going to use potatoes. I’m going to see what happens with just ham and cheese.