Summer Frittata

My in-laws will be here tomorrow.  I. CANNOT.WAIT!!!  We haven't seen them in a year, we haven't seen any relatives in 6 months.  It's one of the drawbacks of living here.  I love my in-laws and am blessed to get along well with them.  Of course, being the typical daughter-in-law, I feel an enormous amount of pressure to have a clean, clean, spotless house when they arrive.  I have actually accepted that with Price in our midst, spotless probably isn't going to happen, but vacuumed, mopped, dusted, somewhat more organized than usual will.  Unless I continue to procrastinate and take random breaks from the aforementioned chores that I have embarked on.  That's why I am writing this post now, as opposed to later.  I am taking a break, I just moved a bunch of heavy furniture and thought I'd sit for a minute and tell you about the fabulous dinner I made last night.  I am able to do this, even though my living room looks like this,

And my dining room looks like this,

No, the futon doesn't actually live in the living room (see info about moving furniture).  We are going to have to sleep on the futon while Don's parents are here thanks to only having a  2 bedroom (yet another drawback of living here), and yes that is the futon mattress on the dining room floor.  It's harder to move than a couch and a futon frame, hence the break I am taking to gather my strength back up.  Well, there's that and the fact I have to tackle my kitchen...

Anyway, on to last night's dinner (I think I'm starting to get my cooking mojo back)...  We had a bunch of people over Friday night for a porch warming party.  I over estimated everyone's fondness for tomatoes and had several left over that I needed to use.  I also have a Thai basil plant that has taken off and wanted to use it as well.  So all day, I tried to come up with something that I could use both items in, and it hit me- a frittata.  Yum!  I found a recipe to use as a guide. The recipe called for corn.  I would never have thought to put corn in a frittata, but I had three ears that cost me sixty cents each (oh how I miss Frank's Fruit Farm and even long for Kroger's fifteen cents corn).  But corn is my summer veggie.  There is no other veggie (not even a big, fat homegrown tomato) that says summer to me as much as corn- it just drips of picnics and grilling out and butter- glorious melted butter .  I splurged on 3 ears of corn when it was on sale (down from $1/ear) and was happy to get the chance to use it in the frittata.

Very liberally adapted from Better Homes and Garden's Vegetable Frittata With Cheese


For this recipe you will need:
8 eggs, olive oil, salt, and pepper, 1/2 cup of shredded cheese (I used cheddar, but any would work), oven-safe skillet (I used this one)


1 tbsp fresh, chopped basil


3 cloves, finely chopped garlic

1 onion, chopped

3 links (casing removed) or 1/2 pound ground Italian sausage or if you're not a fan of meat, leave it out.  I put it in so Don wouldn't complain about having a girlie frittata for dinner.

1 ear of fresh, uncooked corn off the cob or about 1/2 cup frozen corn (the corn made this dish for me, probably because it was fresh corn off the cob and considering I bought it at the Commissary where produce is spotty and usually disappointing, this corn was pretty fantabulous- it had the perfect corn crunch)

1 small  head of broccoli, chopped

2 tomatoes , chopped (I left mine chunky and I also forgot to take pictures of the actual chopped tomatoes)

Here's how to make your Summer Frittata (btw, you can TOTALLY change out any of the veggies in this dish for your favorites, these are what I had on hand.  I'll make it again with peppers and squash)....

In a large oven-safe skillet, heat 1 tbsp of olive oil, add onions, garlic and sausage.  Cook, stirring often until sausage is brown.  Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, lightly beat 8 eggs, add basil, salt and pepper- set aside.

Once sausage is browned, add corn and broccoli, cook for about 3 minutes, add tomatoes, cook for another 3-5 minutes until vegetables are slightly browned.

Pour egg mixture over entire pan.  Making sure that entire surface is covered. You may want to reduce heat slightly and if your burner SUCKS like mine has an area that doesn't heat up, you may need to roate your pan to ensure everything gets cooked evenly.  Once the sides start setting (sticking to the side of your pan), run your spatula around the rim of the pan to allow uncooked egg to seep in and get cooked, you should do this several times.

Once the egg stays off the pan and no more seeps in, the sides are set- even if the center is still moist (I HATE THAT WORD) a little jiggly.

Sprinkle with cheese and place under broiler for 3-5 minutes until cheese is melted and the jiggliness is gone from the center (if only I could sit under a broiler for a few minutes until my jiggly center was gone...)

Remove from oven and let sit for about 5 minutes.

Yummy deliciousness!!  Both of the boys liked it, Price had fun fishing out the veggies (he prefers them over the meat).  Don appreciated the sausage since it manned up the dish.  Very successful!

Tonight, I'm attempting homemade tomato sauce with the last 4 of my too many tomatoes from Friday night.