Today is my first weekend off in what seems like forever, and it is a long weekend to boot, so Tod & I celebrated a lazy Saturday by spending most of it in the kitchen. After so many weeks of dinners at the office, I have access to my own kitchen and pantry. I am in heaven.
We started off our culinary day with "Wilty Frittata" made with three eggs and a leftover lettuce, tomato and parmesan salad with croutons that I found in the fridge. Leftover salad (undressed, of course) has a lot of possibilities and we often use it as sandwich filling or as the base for a fresh salad, but this is the first time I've made a frittata with lettuce. It was worth remembering.
Wilty Frittata
serves 2
1 Tbsp olive oil
3 eggs, beaten
2 cups of leftover salad, mostly greens
1 Tbsp parmesan
salt & pepper to taste
1 small tomato, diced
drizzle of salad dressing
Heat the oil in a fry pan that has a lid. Pour in the eggs, and arrange any non-lettuce bits of the salad and the parmesan evenly over the eggs. Reserving a few leaves of greens for the garnish, place the rest in the pan with the eggs. Cook, covered, over medium heat for about 10 minutes. The eggs should be cooked through. If not, slide the frittata out of the pan onto a plate, then invert the pan over the plate, turn the pan-plate over and remove the plate. Cook another 5 minutes or as needed to firm up the eggs.
Top the finished frittata with the reserved leaves, diced tomato, and a drizzle of salad dressing.
***
For lunch we had a surprisingly tasty fusion of Japanese "ganmo" tofu and shiso pickles with carrot and lettuce wrapped in flour tortillas. After lunch, I baked some oat crackers and made red pepper and walnut dip for tomorrow. Later on in the day, we tried making oven-roasted beet chips from Mark Bittman's excellent "How to Cook Everything Vegetarian", but they failed - they were either burned to a crisp or soggy. It was a sad mistake. However, Bittman redeemed himself with a recipe for popcorn brittle that I vamped on to make a spiced movie snack.
Spiced Popcorn Brittle
serves 4 or more
2 cups sugar
1/3 cup water
1/2 tsp each: ginger, cinnamon, cardamom
6 cups popcorn, salted
1/2 cup sesame seeds
oil for greasing
Grease a cookie sheet or baking pan and set aside. Mix together the spices, sugar and water in a saucepan. Simmer over medium heat for about 10 minutes or until the sugar carmelises. Drizzle the sugar syrup over the popcorn, stirring to coat. (Take care not to actually stick your hands into the bowl to mix this - hot sugar hurts!) Sprinkle with sesame seeds. Spread in the greased pan and allow to cool.
Leave a comment