Week 39 - Vegetable Frittata
Throughout this cookbook challenge, I've made more dessert recipes than anything else, so I do try to mix in a non-dessert every once in a while. This week's recipe was for Vegetable Frittata from the cookbook "More Retro Diner: A Second Helping of Roadside Recipes" by Randy Garbin & Teri Dunn, published in 2005. This book is actually a part 2 as there is a book in this series called simply "Retro Diner". The cookbook is full of recipes that you might typically find in a diner. I do wish that at least a few of the recipes came from actual diners, past or present, instead of being just generic recipes. I understand that many diners probably aren't in a hurry to give out their recipes, but I would love to know if these recipes actually came from anywhere specific and if so when.
This book is heavily illustrated with vintage clip art and diner photos. Again, I'd love a little bit more information here. None of the diner photos are labeled with locations or dates, which I think is a bit of a shame. I'll bet a bit of research on the authors' part would have brought up some more information about at least some of the photos.
"More Retro Diner: A Second Helping of Roadside Recipes".
A spread from the book
We have been trying not to eat meat at every meal, which is one of the reasons I chose this recipe. However, when I looked at the recipe, I realized it contained ham and the only vegetables were a small amount of sautéed onions, potato and parsley. Why they decided to call it a "vegetable" frittata is a bit of a mystery. Since I wanted a meatless dish, I decided to leave out the ham and add some spinach and mushrooms.
This recipe is very easy, but does require a bit of prep work. The potato needs to be pre-cooked before slicing which means this recipe would be perfect if you had leftover baked potatoes that needed to be used up. The onion also needs to be sautéed before assembling the dish by layering the ingredients.
Sautéed onion
Grated cheese, which makes the dish delicious, but not particularly healthy
Sliced, cooked potato with a sprinkling of dried thyme
My added vegetable layer of spinach and mushrooms which replaced the meat.
Once the layers were in place, the next step was to pour the beaten eggs over the top. This recipe called for 10 eggs, but my layers were quite thick, so I added a few more eggs so that the egg could cover the ingredients a bit better. Once the frittata was assembled, it went into a 400 degree oven for 25 minutes.
The frittata, ready for the oven
As it baked, the egg puffed up nicely and I served it as soon as it was done. The resulting dish was very good. The eggs were nice and fluffy and worked well with the other ingredients. This would be a very easy dish to make for breakfast or dinner and could be assembled a bit in advance, if necessary. To make it a bit healthier, I may reduce the amount of cheese the next time. This would be a very adaptable recipe as you could really change the ingredients to create an entirely different dish.
The final frittata, just out of the oven
Vegetable frittata
Cookbook: "More Retro Diner: A Second Helping of Roadside Recipes" by Randy Garbin & Teri Dunn, published 2005
Recipe: Vegetable Fritatta
Difficulty: Easy
Alterations: The original recipe contained meat and very few vegetables, so I substituted the ham with spinach and muchrooms
Results: Very good
Make Again: Yes, but I'd like to try different ingredients next time.