Frittatas are fun: a summer frittata recipe

Let’s just get this truth out there: I kind of love eggs. I’ll eat scrambled eggs any time of day for any meal. Omelettes make me smile. I’ll even eat fried eggs every once in awhile.

And in the summer, let’s jut face it. Sometimes dinner is a rather low-key, light affair. When it’s blasted hot outside, who wants heavy meals full of red meat and carbs? Some of you maybe. Me? Not so much.

So recently I combined my love of eggs and my desire for a light evening meal and came up with this frittata recipe. There’s spinach, onion, summer tomatoes, and cheese, of course.

1. Gather your ingredients and the pans and utensils you’ll need. You’re going to need about 4 eggs or the equivalent in egg beaters (I used a mixture of both), 1/2 of an onion, cheese of your choice (I used pecorino-romano which is NICE with spinach), garlic, fresh spinach, and summer tomatoes. I also used a little milk and/or heavy cream. For cookware, you’ll need a small skillet that can go on the stovetop and in the oven and it probably needs to have taller sides so you don’t slop your mixture all over the place.

2. In a bowl, combine your eggs with seasonings of your choice and a touch of milk (or heavy cream) and use a whisk to beat together. I just used a little milk and you don’t have to use any at all if you don’t want to. For seasonings, I used a generous helping of black pepper, kosher salt, thyme, and red pepper flakes.

3. Put your skillet on the stovetop and melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in it. When the butter is melted, add in the onion (1/2 of an onion, chopped) and chopped garlic (2 cloves). Cook in the butter just until brown and starting to break down and brown a bit.

4. Add a big handful (about 1 cup) of fresh spinach to your egg mixture, then pour the eggs into the skillet on top of the onions cooked in butter. Now here comes the part that might bother some of you: don’t do anything. Don’t stir the eggs. Don’t continually run your spatula around the perimeter of the pan. Just let them cook on medium to low heat.

5. When the sides and underneath is starting to get firm, top the frittata with as many sliced tomatoes of your choice and about a 1/2 cup of cheese.

6. Place the skillet in the oven. You oven should be preheated to about 350 degrees and you’re just finishing off cooking the frittata in the oven. Basically, you cook it until your cheese starts to melt or brown and make sure that the top middle part of the frittata that was jiggly when you took it off the stovetop is no longer jiggly. The eggs can actually brown a little on the top and that’s good. Basically, you’re not really going to cook this frittata long in the oven because you’ve done most of the cooking on the stovetop. I’d say it was only in there about 10 minutes, give or take.

7. When the frittata is baked through, remove from oven and cut into wedges. Serve with a nice garden salad and if you’re like me, thinly sliced fried potatoes. Yummy!

Ingredients:
4 eggs or the equivalent in egg product (also a touch of milk or heavy cream if you desire)
1/2 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Cheese of your choice (pecorino-romano was mine), 1/2 cup
Spinach, about 1/2 cup
Tomatoes, as many as you like, but don’t cover the whole thing with tomatoes
Seasonings to taste, including pepper, salt, red pepper, and thyme

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