Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Potato, Mushroom, and Kale Frittata

How am I supposed to gain weight if I don't have time to eat, much less cook? I've been working late and coming home late. Last night I was home by 7:30 (an early night) or so and it was so tempting to just eat the Indian leftover options but I just didn't have it in me. I'm tired of Indian food and tired of eating food that I didn't make myself. In any case, I forced myself to make something and this is what I came up with.

While at the grocery store over the weekend, I decided to make a frittata but I wanted it to be different than the one I previously blogged about with bell peppers and onions. I love mushrooms so I decided to grab some cremini (mini portabellas) and then was hemming and hawing about spinach until I came across multi-colored kale. The leaf parts are green but the stems were all sorts of different colors. Not sure if the colors do anything to the flavor but it was pretty and inexpensive so why not? The California spinach contamination is still too fresh in my memory to even consider using it. After all, I do want to live to share my cooking stories.

So I prepared this dish the same way I prepared the other frittata starting with the a little bit of oil and sauteing the potatoes. Then after 5 minutes I added the salt, thyme, and mushrooms. Then I added the kale which I finely chopped up in the food processor. So I get through making this when I realized that I only had 2 eggs! Two! How can you possibly make a frittata with just two eggs? You can't. I was too lazy to go to the grocery store and too stubborn to let this go. After all, it had taken the last bit of energy to make the darned thing, so I called MJ, my neighbor down the street, who kindly gave me two eggs. This reminded me of the time I visited the south of France and I was staying with friends and we would go over to their neighbor's to get freshly laid eggs because the neighbor had chickens! Of all things, and it wasn't like we were out in the country. We were in Martigues! There's nothing like freshly laid French eggs, let me tell you. There's also nothing like a French Croissant with chocolate.

Anyway, I digress. This recipe is less massive than the other frittata, I used 4 eggs instead of the usual 5.

I think the frittata turned out great and the flavor, while the herbs were same, tasted completely different. It was an easy way to get a green vegetable in the diet without noticing it too much. Not sure what my nutritionist would have to say about that since he said I needed to up the protein and fat, and decrease the amount of vegetables I eat. Never thought I would live to hear that I should be eating fewer fruits and vegetables. Hey, I should enjoy this while it lasts. In any case, I got my protein.

Really the first dish I kind of made up on my own! Yeah!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Nirmala, frittatas rule, and they are a great way to use up some veggies and get a good protein hit without spending too much time on the dish. You're so right -- they're great for nights when you're working late and don't really feel like cooking, and the leftovers are fab for breakfast the next day! This particular combo sounds delicious -- I'm going to keep it in mind.