Garden Fritatta

Fritattas are Spain’s answer to France’s omelettes, albeit baked to a finish rather than folded.  The concept is the same, however — mix eggs with savory veggies, a bit of milk, and/or fresh herbs, then cook gently and serve piping hot.  And like omelettes, fritattas don’t have crusts, which makes them very easy (and quick!) to make.

Now — when your garden/the farmer’s market is brimming with bounty — is a great time to make fritattas.  Just use whatever you have at hand to create a personalized, only-to-be-experienced-one-time garden fritatta.  For mine, I used tomatoes and a variety of fresh herbs:  sage, rosemary, thyme, pineapple sage, basil, and sorrel.  You could just as easily use green beans (steam them for five minutes beforehand, then drain and dice), peppers, zucchini, eggplant, even cucumbers…whatever is handy.

Garden Fritatta for Two

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk together 3 eggs and 1/2 cup whole milk in a bowl.  Stir in diced veggies and/or freshly-slivered herbs.

Put a pat of butter into an oven-safe, non-stick pan over medium heat.  When butter sizzles, pour in egg mixture.  Cook for about 5 minutes or until edges are set but center is still somewhat liquid.  (You’ll have to lift the edges occasionally and gently poke a hole in the middle to get the eggs to cook evenly.  Just be careful to use a soft, heat-proof spatula so that you don’t wind up with scrambled eggs rather than a fritatta.  The trick is to be gentle enough to get the mixture where it needs to go to cook without shredding it.  If you go overboard, though, it’s okay — you’ll have a delicious plate of scrambled eggs.  Just be sure to turn off the oven before eating them.)

Once fritatta is semi-set, bake it for about 10 minutes or until the center is set and the edges are crispy brown.  To serve, use a spatula to loosen the fritatta from the pan, then slide off onto a large plate.  You can also cut the fritatta into wedges while it’s still in the pan and then serve the wedges.

Enjoy!

Nasturtium Atop a Salad

You can add visual appeal, flavor, and exotic flair to any dish just by topping it with an edible flower or two.    (Which you probably already have growing in your backyard.)  Sprinkle rose petals onto a bowl of vanilla ice cream, and suddenly you have a romantic dessert guaranteed to knock the socks off of a Valentine date.  Slip little violets into your ice-cube trays before freezing and then watch your dinner guests’ reactions when you serve them drinks adorned with frozen, floating flowers.

The blossoms from basil, chamomile, dill, lavender, mint, rosemary, sage, and thyme can all be scattered into salads, soups, and main dishes…or make fresh tea with them.  You can even use the flowers from everyday clovers and dandelions.  (Makes you redefine “weeds,” doesn’t it?)  Just be sure that you choose flowers from organic sources — if you’ve sprayed your lawn with pesticides or fertilizers, don’t eat anything from it.  Florists are also not the best source of edible flowers since they typically aren’t focused on organic growing methods.  You’re better off either buying edible flowers from a produce market where they’re intended to be eaten or cultivating your own organic garden.  For a comprehensive list of edible flowers and their characteristics, check out The Organic Cook’s Bible.

To create this salad, I tossed cucumbers, apricots, pinenuts, leftover cooked green beans, and a medium-sharp cow’s milk cheese with some balsamic vinegar and extra-virgin olive oil.  It was a nice mixture in and of itself, but then I decided to make it really special by snipping a few nasturtium flowers off of the plant in my backyard and using them as edible garnish.  They added just the right amount of pepperiness and zip!

So the next time you’re thinking about trimming back a lilac bush or ripping out some impatiens, consider putting a few blossoms on your plate (yes, lilac flowers and impatiens are both edible).  Even if you don’t eat them, they’ll add a new level of interest to whatever you’re serving.

Enjoy!

Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

If you’ve ever planted zucchinis in your garden, you know what happens:  they take over.  In a good way.  (Although I probably should have planted my corn and peppers a bit farther apart…)  Since my fledgling zucchinis are offering a bounty of blossoms right now, I decided to see what I could do with them in culinary terms.  Some people simply slice them and sprinkle them on salads; others deep-fry them as fritters.  I decided to stuff them with a goat-cheese sofrito and then sautée them in ghee.  The result was a creamy, light-and-summery tasting appetizer.  Next time, I’ll make enough for a meal!

Stuffed Zucchini Blossoms

Choose blossoms that have fully opened but have not yet begun to wilt.  (When they wilt, they become so limp that they’re impossible to work with.)  Snip off the blossoms right at the base, then rinse them with cold water and carefully reach into the centers to check for bugs and to pull out the pistils.  Set aside cleaned blossoms while you make the stuffing.

For the sofrito, sautée finely-diced red bell pepper with a bit of finely-diced onion and finely-diced garlic.  When the onions are translucent — that should only take two or three minutes over medium heat — remove pan from heat and stir in goat cheese.  (Amounts vary according to how many blossoms you’re stuffing, how big they are, and how you prefer your ratios — I like lots of red pepper and cheese, for example, so I load up on those.  Just bear in mind that each blossom will only hold about a tablespoon of stuffing…perhaps even less.)

Use a small spoon or your fingers to split apart the petals and slide some stuffing into each blossom.  “Seal” each one by twisting the petals together towards the top to form a closed package.

Using a fresh pan — the leftover bits of goat cheese in the previous pan would burn — sautée the blossoms over medium heat just long enough for them to become a golden brown on both sides.  (I’ve found that ghee works best for browning.)  A word of caution:  be sure to keep an eye on the blossoms and shake the pan to move them around.  They’ll brown in a quick minute or two!  Serve piping hot.

Enjoy!

Sunflower Sprouts

Windowsills are a great place to grow kitchen herbs and sprouts.  If you have an unobstructed east- or west-facing window, whatever you choose to plant will have a very happy home; if you give your plant some toothsome kitchen scraps, it’ll have an even happier home.  (In my case, whenever I use eggs, I add a little bit of cold water to the eggy bowl, swish it, and then pour it into the plant.  Crushed eggshells also make great fertilizer.  Just be careful not to overfeed your house plants–if you do, mold can develop!)

This spring, after going on a what-do-I-already-have? rampage through my pantry, I  wound up planting dried Northern beans, some wheatberries, and raw sunflower seeds.  And guess what?  They all grew!  (Which really made me think about that old wives’ tale I’d heard as a kid about watermelon seeds growing in your belly…)  The raw sunflower seeds from Trader Joe’s did the best, so I planted another batch and then gave the seeded soil some windowsill real estate.  I planted them with the intention of snipping off the sprouts and adding them to my salads, but they’re looking so cute that I may have to let them become sunflowers…

…or not.  It is getting to be lunchtime, after all.