Leftover Makeovers: EGG-cellent Frittata (see what I did there?)

I have issues w/ portion control both cooking and eating.  We're a family of 3 yet I inherited this gene from my mom where I always just cook for like 10 people meaning we eat a lot of leftovers.

Waka waka waka

Most leftovers get eaten as lunch or dinner the next day.  Some get lost and turn in to unintentional science experiments in the back of the fridge.  Sad face.  True story.

Little annoys me more than wasted food.  No, that's a false statement.  Many things annoy me. One of the several things that annoy me greatly is wasted food.  There we go.  Yes.

If I've gone particularly crazy on the leftover front and have more than say 2 days worth, I like to give the leftovers a little makeover before they're relegated to science experiment status (a.k.a. Poltergeist).  This frittata is VERY adaptable and works well w/ pretty much any leftovers: potatoes, broccoli, chicken, ham, roasted veggies always work really well, whatever.  

Puffy and golden!

Frittata is good for breakfast, lunch or a light dinner.  I love a slice of this paired with salad.  It also freezes well so you can bake and stick it in the freezer for when you don't want to cook which is me for the months of June, July and August when it's hot. Give it a try!

Leftover Frittata

makes 8 servings in a 9" (oven safe!) pan

2-3 c leftovers (try using dryer foods like things that weren't cooked w/ sauces)
       I happened to have some leftover steamed broccoli, about 1/2 cup of ham, diced, and    
       some roasted fingerling potatoes for this one)
1/2 c shredded cheese of choice (I've even used sliced cheese on top)
5-7 eggs (depending on how many leftovers you're starting with)
1 tbsp fresh chopped herbs such as parsley, basil or green onions (if using dried, 1 tsp is fine)
1/2 c milk (I've used half and half)
2 tbsp flour
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1/2 tsp salt
pepper

Preheat oven 425 degrees.  Start with an oven proof skillet on medium heat.  Unless yours has a metal handle, make sure it's oven safe (to 450) before beginning or else you'll have to transfer to an oven safe dish (or a greased pie plate works) before sticking it in the oven. Heat oil in skillet and drop in your leftovers to warm them through.  While those are going, crack your eggs and add milk, salt and pepper.  Depending on how well seasoned your leftovers are you may need to use more or less salt.  Hard to tell until it's done but when in doubt, underseason - you can always add more later but not the other way around!  Whisk in the flour, herbs cheese and olive oil to the egg mixture and stir lightly.

Add the egg mixture in to the pan and move everything around a few times until the eggs start to set - 2-3 minutes.  Put the entire pan in the oven and bake for 20-30 minutes.  The bake time will actually depend on how deep the pan is so for fully set eggs, bake it until the middle is puffed and golden.  When you pull it out of the oven the center should bet set completely.  Cool for at least 30 minutes.  

You can cool and freeze the whole thing or wrap up individual slices for a quick meal.  If freezing whole, thaw in the fridge overnight before serving. Either microwave or put it in the oven for 350 for about 20-30 min.

Yummy for bfast, lunch or dinner!

Notes: 

I got rid of my nonstick skillets a long time ago and while before stainless I would've never have attempted a frittata in anything but a nonstick skillet, just make sure there's a light coating of oil on your skillet if you are using steel or aluminum.  I can't say I have experience with nonstick pans going in the oven but do recall reading the box on one in the past and saw it was rated for up to somewhere in the 400 degree mark so do your research.  Or just use a dang pie plate but make sure you grease or spray it or you'll be cursing my name as you're scraping egg shards off it.

You can always just saute the veggies in the pan if you don't have leftover issues like me.

My Updated Pizza Obsession

I have never been much of a bookworm.  Gabe, on the other hand, could live with his nose in a book and be happy.  He once spent a several hundred dollar Amazon gift card he got for Christmas by the following March - all on (you guessed it) books (several of which he still hasn't read - but that's another story for another time).  Oh, and my mother-in-law is literally (see what I did there?) a librarian so it's not really a surprise he has this love of books and reading.  But the man has some sEEEriously dry reading interests..in my most humble opinion, of course.  Topics of most interest include: history, military history, sci-fi, teen fiction, romance, etc.  Ok fine, I added in that last two but of the lot I would choose them over the other three - gun to my head.  Sharing a Kindle w/ him is a kinda hilarious because it looks something like: 

• Lions of Kandahar
• Foreign Devils on the Silk Road
• Rubicon: The Last Years of the Roman Republic
• Fifty Shades of Grey
• Hannibal Crosses The Alps
• Bossypants

Would love to see what sort of suggested readings he gets from Amazon.  Yes, you picked out my two books on that list and yes, I like literary junk food.  

Did someone say food?

Carby, carby goodness.

Uhh, right.  I can't say I have the type of attention span to get lost in a military history book about Prussia and forego sleep to do so.  I'm practical.  WHAT is for dinner tonight?  What is the best cooking oil to use for what?  Where did you go in Portland that I can't leave without stopping by for a doughnut?  That is useful information (to me).

Mmmmm, mushrooms..

Anywho - we eat this deeelish pizza for dinner all the time.  A little something like 4 years ago I posted about this pizza and how I love it and wanted to marry it b/c it was all that.  Well, I have a new pizza recipe in my life and I'll never look back. 

This picture is so fake, you know I had like 4 more slices of pizza.

Found this amazing recipe on Smitten Kitchen - another one of my favorite blogs and I've been making it a few months now, life has changed AGAIN.  Sorry PW, I still love you but this pizza is way better and still so easy to make.  It is the closest thing to take-out pizza I've been able to recreate at home.

She even gives all the options on when to start the dough - whether overnight, morning of or afternoon of times to start it.  Yes, it does need to rise but it's really painless, promise.  It's called LAZY Pizza Dough for Pete's sake.

Overnight - 22 hr rise

All-Day - 12 hr rise

Part-Day - 8 hr rise

These rise times are approximate and definitely work +/- a few hours.

Lazy Pizza Dough

from this recipe on Smitten Kitchen

makes a half sheet pan pizza

3 cups AP or bread flour (I use bread)
Slightly heaped 1/8, 1/4 or 1/2 teaspoon active dry yeast (for Overnight, All-Day, or Part-Day Schedules respectively, above)
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 1/4 cup room temp water, plus an additional tablespoon or two if needed (I almost always need it)

Throw everything in to a mixing bowl and mix until your arm falls off.  Or get a stand mixer and mix w/ the dough hook attachment for about 10 min.  When finished mixing, cover the bowl w/ plastic wrap (I use the same bowl I mixed in because, ya, I'm lazy).  The dough will be very sticky and shaggy.  I always put a ring of olive oil around the bowl for fun.  

I almost always make this with either the all-day or part-day, stick it in a (cold) oven w/ the oven light on to proof (rise).  

When the dough is finished rising, (take the dough out of the oven if you're using it to proof and) preheat the oven to 550 degrees and prepare the pan you'll be baking the pizza on (I don't have a fancy pizza stone so I just use a 1/2 sheet pan) by dusting it with a liberal amount of cornmeal.  Sprinkle the dough (and your hands) with flour and use a spatula to scrape the it out of the bowl.  Stretch the dough to fit the pan (don't roll it out!) and make sure there are no sticky spots underneath by sprinkling with more cornmeal until it moves freely when you shake the pan.  

Bake w/ your favorite pizza toppings for about 10-15 min until the cheese is nice and bubbly, enjoy!

Killing me softly.

Notes:

I've since changed my mind about fresh mozzarella much due to the fact that, after reading the Smitten Kitchen posting about pizza, I agree the aged mozz is much better for pizza.  It comes out nowhere near as soggy and I still get a great flavorful cheesy topping.  I love the Trader Joe's Whole Milk Mozzarella hunk and grate it myself.  Furthermore, I haven't had the patience to add another step to the pizza by doing what she does w/ the canned tomatoes - I just used Trader Joe's jarred pizza sauce.  The sauce is really good but a tad on the salty side so I never need to add any other seasonings to the toppings.  Hope you try it!  And if you do, tell me how it turned out! 

Home Alone Husband Penne

My mom once told me this old Chinese story about a wife that left on some trip away from home and baked a big cookie to tie around her husband's neck so he wouldn't starve while she was gone. She came home to find him dead anyways - starved to death. The cookie was half eaten but only to top part that he could reach. He never flipped the cookie around to eat the bottom side.

Last weekend I took my mom to Vegas. The trip only lasted 3 days but in those short days, if left to his own vices, I may have found my own hubby dead of starvation. Or at least severely emaciated and malnourished. He would have been forced to consume what's left of the stale saltines, sniff out the hidden Oreos in the back of the cupboard or gnaw off his own arm.

Ok, I kid. Maybe not that last one, but there certainly would've been more than one trip to those famous golden arches. It's certainly not that Gabe can't feed himself, he just doesn't make very healthy choices. This pasta is good for fooling him into thinking he's eating some 'man food'. Joke's on him, there's tons of zucchini and whole wheat pasta in it.

We came home a few days later and..........he was still alive! Perfectly well fed with several balanced meals. He even made himself a little salad.

No he didn't. Salads = immediate loss of man cards.

No matter. He's alive. That's all that matters.

Love you, Boo.

Home Alone Husband Penne

Serves 6-8

3 zucchini, large
1 onion, large
4 garlic cloves
1 lb. sweet Italian sausage, bulk* 1 lb. fresh mozzarella
1 32 oz. jar marinara sauce
1/2 c. grated hard cheese (parmigiano reggiano or pecorino romano)
1 lb. box penne pasta (or any other short cut pasta)

* If you don't have Italian sausage, be crafty & make your own:

1 lb. pork shoulder
1 tsp. fennel seed
1/2 tsp. paprika
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. red pepper flake, optional
salt & pepper to taste

Preheat oven 350ºF. Start some water boiling for the pasta and preheat another large heavy bottom pot on high to saute veggies and brown sausage.

Now, let's start paring the veggies. I use a large dice on both the onion and zucchini:

Put about 3 tbsp. oil into the bottom of the pan. When it starts to ripple, get the onions in the pot and turn the heat down to sweat the onions. Sprinkle with salt & pepper.

Chop garlic.

When onions are nice and translucent, toss in zucchini and garlic.

I didn't happen to have the sausage on hand so I just ground some pork shoulder up in the food processor and added some spices.

If that's the route you're going, cube up the pork and pulse in the food processor until it's ground up.

Season w/ some salt & pepper.

What makes sausage taste like sausage..fennel seeds!

After the veggies cook down and look like this:

Put them aside on a plate:

Using the same pan on the same heat, put about 2 tbsp. light oil (I use canola) in the bottom and toss in the ground pork.

Now, don't crucify me - I didn't have any paprika. But if I did, I'd add it in here. I put some oregano and steak seasoning in instead. Just for fun. Gabe can't tell when things taste crazy.

Keep it stirring.

Water should be boiling at this point. Throw in a handful of salt.

Add in your pasta and boil a few minutes shy of whatever it says on the box.

You don't want the Sausage going too far so turn the heat down when the sausage is almost all the way cooked.

Cut your mozzarella into large 1" cubes. Boys LOVE this.

Rolling boil, good good.

Dump pasta, good good.

Dump the onion/zucchini mixture back in.

If you have your own marinara, you're an overachiever. I use my favorite jarred:

Pecorino Romano:

Dump the sauce in the pot.

Add in the chunks of mozzarella:

Use a spider and add in the pasta directly into the sauce..

Mixy mixy.

Stand back and admire. Try not to drool in the pot.

Transfer to a 9 x 13" pan.

Sprinkle w/ cheeeeese!

Yum.

Bake at 350ºF for about 30 minutes.

Ooey gooey mozzarella.

Those big chunks of cheese really make it.