Cooking with Suz – Round 2 – Using leftovers

Leftovers.  A fact of life.  First let me say that I really do hate throwing out food…. it was ingrained in me as a child that to be wasteful is practically a sin!  “Waste not, want not” the old adage goes, so I really do try not to throw stuff out – although sometimes I’ll admit that it just can’t be helped. Anyway, in today’s “Cooking with Suz” I’m going to show you how I recently used up some leftovers and turned them in to something really tasty.  Of course, you can always simply reheat whatever is leftover, but in this case, I had small bits of “this and that” and decided to make it into a Frittata! Not only was this easy, it was quick and really delicious.

The night before, we’d had filet of sole, orzo with spinach and feta, {oh DO click on that link for a very tasty side dish recipe!} and broccoli.  With a cat in the house, you can bet there was no fish leftover {not sure the cat actually got any… it was so good! I bread it with this stuff}, but we did have leftover broccoli and orzo. The next morning I decided to try a frittata with my leftovers.  What’s awesome about a frittata is that you can pretty much use anything (within reason) that you have leftover and turn it into something wonderful.  I used what I had – the beauty of frittatas 🙂 – and so can you.  So, here’s how it went:

First off – (highly important) choose an oven proof skillet!!  I have a set of  perfectly awesome Dacor Hot Dots cookware, given to me a few years ago by my dear friend and neighbor, Susan Banton. What a fabulous gift that I’ve used over and over and will no doubt last literally the rest of my life!!  Thank you, Susan!  So, one could use an all steel skillet like mine, or cast iron would also do.  Whatever you do, do NOT use a skillet with a plastic handle of any kind! Yikes.  All right, enough of that. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Melt a tablespoon (or so) of butter in the bottom of your pan, then add whatever leftovers you may have.  I added the orzo with spinach & feta as well as the broccoli. Sauteeing some onion would also be good…. leftover potatoes – cut up; diced ham or other meat; oh shoot, the possibilities are endless. You want these leftover ingredients good and warm before adding the eggs.

Many frittata recipes suggest using 8-12 eggs. Unless you are feeding an army, that’s totally unnecessary! I beat 3 eggs well, added a bit of salt and pepper, and a couple of Tablespoons of milk or half & half, mixing everything well. Over medium heat, pour your egg mixture as evenly as possible over your heated leftovers!

So, it’s not perfect, but there are eggs everywhere so I was happy.  Allow the mixture to begin to cook on the stovetop for about 3 minutes.  Then sprinkle on some grated cheese (I used cheddar and possibly some parmesan) and place the whole thing uncovered into the oven for 15-20 minutes.

Here’s the finished product!!!  It cut into pie-shaped servings easily and tasted awesome!  Try a frittata soon, you won’t be sorry AND you’ll probably use up something you may have even ended up throwing out!  YUM!

Yummy Breakfast Scramble

This morning I decided to try to use up some stuff in the fridge by making a breakfast scramble.  Sometimes I make omelettes (Greek omelette with Feta is one of my favorites), but I wanted to try something different today.  It turned out SO doggone delicious that I snapped a photo of what little was left on my plate and decided it was worthy of a blog post!

So, here’s how I put it together.  I had some onion and green pepper in the fridge that I wanted to use, so I chopped those up fairly fine.  I sauteed them in a little olive oil – because raw onion and green pepper are simply not too tasty in a breakfast egg dish!  When they were softened, I threw in half a chopped up tomato – not to cook it, basically just to warm it up.  While that was happening, I whisked together three eggs and about a tablespoon of milk. In my large non-stick skillet, I melted half a tablespoon (or as they might say in England, a “knob”) of butter. When the butter was melted, I sprinkled on half a bag of organic baby spinach – I’m guessing it was about two cups or so. I waited a minute or so until the spinach was starting to wilt, and then I threw the sauteed onion, green pepper, and tomato on top of it.  On top of all that, I poured the eggs.  It didn’t take long for the eggs to begin to set up a bit, and I used a silicone scraper to move the eggs around in the pan gently. When they were nearly done all the way through, I dropped on the MAGIC ingredient – some cubes of cut up Brie cheese (minus the rinds!).  I distributed the Brie bits on top of the eggy-veggie-goodness and at a low temp, allowed the Brie to melt.  OH MY WORD was this ever delicious! Normally I use cheddar cheese in my omelettes or egg dishes, but this Brie…. – holy moly – the Brie gave the whole thing such a lovely texture and flavor!!!!  I seasoned it with S & P, and hubby did what he always does, gobbled his down with plenty of salsa on the side.  It was served with a side of sourdough toast, and thoroughly enjoyed by us both! 🙂