Breakfast for a Crew

The thing about people coming to visit us in Naugatuck is that they don't leave.  I'm not saying this in a bad way, but when you drive 45 minutes to the middle of freakin' nowhere, eat tasty food and consume tasty drinks, it's really not a good idea to drive back home.  When friends come to stay, it's usually for the night... sometimes two... sometimes, as in the case of a party, in abundance.

Not quite this bad, but Naugy is kind of far away from everyone.

When John and I have guests, we like to feed them tasty food.  Dinner is usually a well thought out and well executed plan.  The trouble comes with breakfast.  What do you feed a house full of hungover, hungry, dysfunctional people?  Especially if you happen to be one of them...  The answer is frittata!

I have to confess to a few things before getting into the details.   First, I can take no credit for this idea.  This awesomeness is all due to my awesome friend Wyllys.  He probably got the idea from someone else, but since I don't know the story, I'm giving him all the glory.  Back in Chicago, Wyllys has a beach house in Michigan, just a short 45 minute drive from the city, to the quaint lakeside town of Bridgman, MI.  In all his awesomeness, he used to invite us to go up and spend the weekend quite often; sometimes with large groups of people.  Wyllys also likes to feed people tasty food.

And the second confession, this isn't really a frittata by definition. According to Wikipedia "The Italian word frittata derives from fritto, the past participle of "to fry" (friggere), and was originally a general term for cooking eggs in a skillet, anywhere on the spectrum from fried egg, through conventional omelette, to an Italian version of the Spanish tortilla de patatas, made with pasta instead of fried potato. Outside Italy, frittata was seen as equivalent to "omelette" until at least the mid-1950s. In the last fifty years, "frittata" has become a term for a distinct variation that Delia Smith describes as "Italy's version of an open-face omelette."

This is more of a breakfast casserole made with potatoes, cheese, veggies, meat and egg.  The best thing about it is you can prepared it ALL the night before and just throw it into the oven in the morning.  It's super easy to customize to the tastes of your guests, especially vegetarians (but unfortunately not vegans.)

Basically you slice and steam the potatoes, grate some cheese, cook any meats and veggies, layer all ingredients in a casserole dish and pour a scrambled egg mixture over everything (I do eggs, half and half or cream, fresh herbs, pepper and a dash of salt... although I totally forgot the salt and pepper in this one.) I like to put a little cheese as my top layer to get a crispy crust.  Bake in a preheated oven at 350° until it looks like the eggs are all cooked... maybe 35 minutes... a clear casserole dish helps with this.  Or you can stick a toothpick in and see if it comes out wet. 

This particular combo was potato, a mixture of smoked and regular mozzarella, prosciutto, sauteed onions and garlic.  The egg mixture had oregano and fresh thyme.

I've also done one with smoked Gouda and sausage; one with asparagus and sun dried tomatoes (forgot what kind of cheese); one with bacon, Havarti and broccoli; one with diced ham and cheddar... you get the idea.

Amazingly, all of our friends were responsible adults on this particular occasion, so we ended up with an entire frittata for ourselves.  After letting the finished product cool, I cut it up into individual servings, wrapped them in Saran wrap and we had an awesome grab and go breakfast all week!

Guess who made homemade potato chips?

Extra these:

Photo courtesy of The Lone Baker via Flickr. 

John prepped all our potatoes before I thought to get out the camera.

+ Plus this:

+ Plus this (at 350°):

 Equals =

A note about frying:  I used to HATE when John fried food.  Not because it was unhealthy, fried food is tasty and tasty trumps healthy.  I hated dealing with oil in my kitchen and the oil smell in the house (yes, even though John does all the cooking, when we're talking about cleaning, it's my kitchen.)  At one point we had a small counter top fryer.  The first time we used it there was an oil overflow and I spent hours dealing with the disaster.  Needless to say our relationship got off to a bad start.  As soon as we moved into our house, I made John use the fryer on the deck until it met its end due to a drunken incident involving a certain tall bald headed friend.  There were no tears shed by me that day.  The purchase of our grill was the answer.  We have one pot designated for frying, which John used on the grill's side burner, outside. Problem solved.

Fiddleheads

1. Fiddleheads are the young unfurled leaves of an ostrich fern.
2. Fiddleheads are only available for a few weeks each year.
3. Fiddleheads are delicious.

And most people I've talked to have never heard of them.  We get odd looks when it comes up in conversation that we eat ferns.

According to University of Maine Cooperative Extension Publications Bulletin #4198, Facts on Fiddleheads (http://umaine.edu/publications/4198e/) fiddleheads can be found "emerging in clusters of about three to twelve fiddleheads each on the banks of rivers, streams, and brooks in April and May."  We've had a cold rainy spring, so I'm guessing that's why we're seeing fiddleheads in June this year. As for taste, I'd describe them as a cross between green beans and asparagus.  But without the funny smelling pee the next day.  According to John, they are "a bit earthy."

Both Wikipedia and umaine.edu note that fiddleheads are especially popular in Maine.  Ah ha... Mainers eat them... that may explain the odd looks.  I ate fiddleheads growing up (in Connecticut)  but then moved to the Midwest for a decade, where people eat fried cheese curds and turkey testicles, and forgot all about them.  It wasn't until I moved back to the east coast and married a guy whose family hails from Maine that I rediscovered this wonderful veggie.

Fiddleheads are popular with foragers and the University of Maine website cautions people to secure permission before harvesting.  While we love locally grown food, foraging is not something that sounds exciting or appealing to either John or I.  It sounds buggy.  And damp.  And time consuming.  Unless you're talking about the type of foraging done at Stop and Shop - digging though the stack of eggplant to find the one that hasn't been beaten with a mace prior to arriving at the store. Then we're great at that.  Or the foraging done at the farmers market for the most awesome kale ever!  (Because so often the farmers market is SO "all kale" "all the time" much the way TNT is 'all Law and Order" "all the time.")  If, like us, you are not a forager, fiddleheads can be found at your local supermarket.  We've purchased them at Big Y and Stop and Shop.  We typically prefer Big Y for produce, but when it comes to fiddleheads, Stop and Shop has been coming out on top.

The umane.edu website also suggests serving fiddleheads with melted butter or vinegar.  I'm only mentioning this because I would like to know what the heck is up with Mainers and vinegar?  They put it on everything - most notable in our house - on brussels sprouts.  I'm not saying it isn't tasty... it's just odd.  Another suggestion from the umaine.edu website is "They may be served, like asparagus, on toast." Ummm...  What?  Is this a Maine thing too? 

Growing up, we ate them steamed, which is the way most recipes online recommend cooking them.  John, however, being the mental dude that he is, can't just make them the same way again and again.  So here's what we (the royal we, of course) did:

I'm guessing these were washed to remove any scales (husk type brown dried stuff) but I wasn't really paying attention at that point. They were steamed for about 12 minutes.

During that time, some diced onion and a few smashed garlic cloves were sauteed in butter.  I love red onion but we rarely use it.  John used it in this dish, just for me, and it looks so pretty!  Some lemon juice, kosher salt, freshly ground pepper (fairly course) and tarragon also went into the saute, but I was cleaning my camera lens and missed all that.

When the onions were soft and starting to get clear (but not caramelized - very specific instruction from the husband), in went the steamed fiddleheads.  After combining everything, shredding Parmesan was added and everything was tossed until one consistent temp was reached.

 Finished product!

These were super tasty, with a great contrast between the earthy fiddleheads and the sharp Parmesan. Anyone heard of fiddleheads?  What do you think of them?  How would you cook with them?

Dinner 1/18/2011: Fiesta Mac and Cheese

1 lb. shells
1 lb. fresh chorizo, casings removed
8 medium sized jalapenos
4 cherry peppers
1 medium yellow onion
6 large cloves of garlic
1 of each, yellow, orange, red sweet peppers
1 tomato
1 stick of butter
1 lb. block of cheddar cheese (shredded)
1 pt. half and half
Salt and pepper (to taste)
Olive oil
2 tsp. chipotle chili powder
½ sleeve of Ritz crackers
½ cup of panko bread crumbs

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Mince garlic and hot peppers.
3. Medium chop tomato and onion
4. In large skillet, drizzle olive oil, combine garlic/pepper mixture and tomato/onion mixture, salt, pepper, and chipotle chili powder with sausage in skillet and cook over medium high heat, stirring often, stirring often, until onions become translucent until almost all moisture is evaporated from pan.
5. Cook shells until they are just before al dente, remove from heat, drain, add back to pan. Add butter, cream and cheese. Over low heat, stir constantly until cheese is melted.
6. Course chop and seed sweet peppers and add to shells.
7. Add meat and veggie mixture to shells. Stir until combined.
8. Pour into two 3 qt. casserole dishes.
9. Crush crackers and combine with panko and top both dishes.
10. Bake for 25 minutes on lowest rack.
11. Turn oven to broil and, on top rack, broil until top is golden brown.
12. Let stand 10 minutes and enjoy!

 Recipe by John Cookson