Cast Iron Frittata with Dying Items

I wanted to make breakfast yesterday morning and use up a few things that were slowly dying in the fridge and pantry including some swiss chard, mushrooms, 6 egg whites, and 2 scallions. We had some bacon, dried bread I was trying to turn into croutons (failing miserably), and some cheese and I thought a cast iron frittata would be good.

Rei made some beautiful sourdough bread that was baking and cooling as I made the frittata. It was so good we went through a loaf yesterday and we have one left. That will most likely be gone today too. Rei, will you make some more soon please? Yes, I will start it tomorrow so we can have some Wednesday. The only problem is the sudden dearth of bread flour in all the stores — are people actually using this flour or just stocking up out of panic? I feel like you should show a certificate like “Yes, I will use this flour” and if they can’t then they should just give it all to me so I can make bread for this household where two loaves won’t last three days. We have a problem.

I pulled out the items to think through what to do and how to do it. I started by chopping up some frozen bacon and Rei got that going in the pan to add a tasty layer before adding the other goodies.

As the bacon was cooking, I wandered around the kitchen to see what else we could throw in and found the crouton-like bread from a few weeks ago and just tossed it in to coat with soften with the bacon grease.

Rei tore up the wilty swiss chard and I tossed it into the pan as I continued to search through the fridge for dying items to add to the pan. I was just kinda standing there, stirring occasionally. Super exciting stuff on my part.

I found some leftover tomatoes and red onions from Friday night and tossed those in along with the chopped scallions. I let this all cook up a little while I grated the cheese and got the egg mixture prepped.

I simply tossed the grated cheese into the pan (we used Colby jack).

I added 4 eggs to the 6 egg whites and then added some whipping cream and whisked it all together and poured it over the cheese. I sprinkled with some kosher salt and freshly grated pepper and popped it into a 350 degree oven for about 20–25 minutes.

It puffed up a little and cooked beautifully. It was at this point that I realized that I made this dish to use up the dying mushrooms in the garage and had forgotten to put them in the dish. Honestly, though, that pretty much sums us up. We’re great at improvising and making tasty shit up as we go along, but we also forget big things like the one ingredient we were supposed to use in the dish.

Rei quickly sliced them up while I heated a sauté pan with butter to quickly saute the mushrooms. Look at those poor babies! Not dead yet but definitely getting there :(

I sprinkled with salt (a little too liberally) and prepared them as a topping for the frittata. Remember, they’re not potatoes, you don’t need to plop a whole salt lick in there.

It was sooooo good. I will be making this again. It was perfect with Rei’s freshly baked bread. I had it again as a late afternoon snack after Sophia (Adam’s girlfriend) and I zipped over to the beach for a walk in the sand and ocean with Violet (my puppy dog).

Violet was one happy dog… Look at that happy puppy!

…after Sophia took her for a little run. And, yes, we kept our distance from the other people. As we walked further down the beach, we saw fewer people and we were able to breathe easier in the wide open space.

It was a gorgeous day in Half Moon Bay…

…a perfect day to go fly a kite.

We ordered takeaway last night from our local Indian restaurant to support a local business. Adam (my son) commented that Rei and I can make better food, and he’s right. I was disappointed by the butter chicken and the naan especially, but it was a nice filling meal and it was good to have a break from cooking.

We will be making Indian food one day this week when Sophia can help us cook (her mom said that staying with us is better than sending her abroad…she’s going to learn to cook, she’s trying new foods, and she got herself a job babysitting for a local family working from home!).

Adam is bagging groceries at the local market 40 hours/week as he does distance learning (Sophia has distance learning from SDSU too). I learned the importance of education when I worked in a chocolate factory in high school; I am hoping Adam learns it with this experience. Ha. Imagine getting a job. I’m over here just doing homework and reading and writing a lot. That’s pretty much it. Oh, and cooking. And eating. And — Okay, maybe I’m doing a lot more than I thought at first…You do produce my YouTube channel, Rei.

But back to breakfast. This was the end of it that I got to clean up after Rei went back into their room to annotate The Handmaid’s Tale and Sophie disappeared to get more sleep. Adam was already at work and Zeke was on a bike ride.

Rei, anything to add? Your bread is so beautiful and was great as breakfast for me this morning with my coffee. I am thinking a vegetarian meal tonight with some asparagus. Maybe a Donato dish of poached eggs on asparagus. And maybe I can cook up a pot of Bolognese sauce (yes, I know this isn’t vegetarian…just spitballing some ideas) and make some pasta. But I do have work to do too. And a virtual cocktail hour at 4.

But over to you…

Ooh, eggs on asparagus is always yummy; do you think we could find duck eggs anywhere or would they be inaccessible? I can totally help with the pasta and bolognese too, you know that. Plus you can multitask and be on Zoom or FaceTime or whatever you use while cooking (I’ve done it a lot).

As I mentioned earlier, bread is in our future in a couple days (at this rate we’ll go through six or eight loaves a week, which is like two or three bags’ worth of flour (I use three different types of flour: AP, whole wheat, and bread), which is kind of a lot.

The frittata was pretty good, though. I would definitely use fresh, less salted mushrooms next time (or put them inside the frittata instead of on top), but that wasn’t that noticeable. When you think about it, frittatas are just crustless, naked quiches. Maybe next time we should put quiche stuff into the frittata, like leeks.

Anyways, I’m off to go do some more homework and probably take a nap or something (I’ve started to really get into naps, where I put on an episode of Bob Ross and doze. It’s great, I highly recommend).

Until next time, ciao, and have a herundreft day!

Rei and Terri :D

PS from Rei: Wash your hands, y’all. Seriously. Go wash them right now. I don’t care if you washed them five minutes ago, go wash them again. I don’t care if you’re washing them as you read this article (nice multitasking, though). Also please don’t lick doorknobs. If you were a doorknob, how would that make you feel?

P.S. from Terri: Adam and I made another naked quiche this morning with bacon, leftover stale bread, spinach, cherry tomatoes, thyme from our garden, jack cheese and 9 eggs with whipping cream. Adam and Rei liked it better than yesterday’s; Zeke like yesterday’s but he was starving after a long bike ride. The next one will be spicy. TM