Zucchini (and Bacon) Frittata

It’s squash season and our diet is full of all things zucchini and yellow summer squash!

When it comes to summer meals, I am all for one dish dinners that are quick, easy, and don’t heat up the kitchen too much.  In years past, quiche with almost any kind of veggie filling has been go-to summertime dinner.  But, quiche, with its pie crust and heavy cream filling, though tasty, is not particularly weight loss friendly.  This year’s substitute for that quiche is the frittata.  Honestly, I find it equally as delicious and much more kind to my waistline!

This particular recipe is a little labor intensive, but it is definitely worth it.  Set the A/C a few degrees lower and go for it!  The day I made it, the thermometer on our patio read 105 degrees.  I have no regrets!

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds zucchini/summer squash
•  salt
• sweet onion
•  freshly grated Parmesan cheese
• 8 large eggs
•  King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur Gluten-Free Flour
• *bacon

The first step is to shred about two pounds of squash.  I did it in about 30 seconds using the food processor.  You can use all zucchini, all yellow summer squash, or combination of the two.  I used the a combination.  Once you have shredded your squash of choice, place it in a colander stir in the salt.  Place a heavy bowl on top of the squash and let it drain for about an hour.  You may also want to give it a few good squeezes.  The goal is to remove as much liquid as possible before cooking.

While the squash is draining, dice the onions.  If you wish to add bacon, this is also the time to cook it.  I used four slices of thick-cut uncured bacon. Set the cooked bacon aside.  Leave 2 TBS of the bacon drippings in the pan.

Once the squash has drained, mix in the onions.  Saute this mixture either in olive oil or the reserved bacon drippings.  Cook the mixture for about 20 minutes.  The veggie volume will greatly diminish!

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Once the veggies are done, in a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, cheese, and flour.  Stir in the veggies (having drained off any excess liquid), and cooked bacon.

Drizzle one tablespoon of olive oil into a 9 or 10 inch round oven safe pan.  I used a cast iron skillet.  Pour the mixture into the pan spreading it evenly.  Bake it for 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown.

That’s it!

I cut mine in to eight servings.

I am glad that I added the bacon to this recipe.  Without it, I think that it might have been a little bland.  Notice there are no herbs or spices.  If I were to make this recipe with veggies only, I would likely add a little garlic and maybe some red pepper flakes.

This is a super flexible recipe!  Use broccoli or spinach.  Add ham.  Experiment with herbs and spices.  Most importantly, enjoy!

from Tracey G.

No-Bake Fresh Strawberry Pie

Where to begin with this No-Bake Fresh Strawberry Pie recipe saga, how about here:

A week ago in a galaxy kitchen far, far away…

My temperamental kitchen sink drain/run of pipe decided it was a good time to clog up. Now it does this about twice a year, due to the poor plumbing job when the house was built (which Jeremy curses every time he has to fix said drain clogs), too long of a run of pipe and gravity is NOT on its side. Usually a bit of muscle get is it going. Well, we thought after the industrial-strength drain eater cleaner, it seemed to be ok. Nope, about a day or so later, we were back at the beginning again. Long story short after practically tearing apart the kitchen, pipes etc, we were good to go. Although there’s still a bit of a problem with the parts at the sink that I had to work around until new could be acquired.

Whew, ok, where was I? Oh right, the saga…

Well, this ” sink drain development” set me behind, and I mean REALLY behind in my Food Friday preparations. So much so that it was Friday morning when I finally got to get started on the recipe. But of course it’s one that needs to set up for about 2 hours (well, they do say that you can eat  it right away if you like/want, but I had photos to think of, so set up time was a good thing), and I knew there was no way it would be ready in time for photos and then posting, so I told Kris I’d be most likely posting on Saturday.

I had first seen this recipe in the Spring issue of Sift, and it calls for one baked 9-inch pie shell, so I used their Single Pie Crust recipe I’ve used many times. But when I looked up the recipe online, it had a different title (the “No-Bake” part added), different crust (although they list you can use a traditional crust in the “Tips From Our Bakers” section, which is what I did), a different amount of berries (2 lbs. instead of 1 lb., along with different sugar amount) and an extra option added for thickening – the KAF Pie Filling Enhancer, instead of just the corn starch listed in magazine.  Well, ok, good thing I got 2 lbs of strawberries!

I got my pie crust made, but let me tell you – I opted to try the “Stand Mixer Method” as talked about in this post from KAF’s blog, Flourish, entitled – “How To Make Pie Crust In Your Stand Mixer: Easy Does It”. And out of everything that went wrong for me along this recipe’s journey, this went so right! It was a great way to bring it together, and super easy! Unfortunately, myself and Pie Pastry have a long-standing love/hate relationship. Just when I think I have it mastered, it laughs at me and says “Oh no you don’t, take that! Ha!!” and becomes a mess to work with, as it did this time. I have no idea what I did wrong, likely not enough water – but let’s just say it became a “pat-in-the-pan” style crust.

Moving on…. I got the pastry shell baked, fairly successfully. I had a few cracks here and there, but nothing I’d worry about, ugly but oh well, ugly food can still taste good!

Now, on to the berry part. I prepped the berries as stated in the recipe. You then pull about 1 1/2 cups out and place in a saucepan, along with your sugar and thickener of choice. I chose to use the Pie Filling Enhancer as I had some that I wanted to use up that had come from a defective batch to KAF’s standards. They had initiated contact with me about it, refunded my money and attached alternate usage instructions for it. I figured this would be a good project to use up the rest of it for. Unfortunately, it didn’t offer a totally clear thickening, mine’s a bit cloudy. But again, it still tastes good!

So, you cook the 1 1/2 cups of berries in the saucepan along with the other filling ingredients (but not the lemon juice), until they thicken, then add in your lemon juice. After that, you stir the whole mix into the rest of the fresh berries and place in the pie shell. As I said before, they state you can eat it now, while warmish or refrigerate for a couple hours to set up. I felt that there weren’t enough berries, maybe I cut them too small, but it seemed to look under-filled – I think next time I’ll get one more pound of berries! The more the merrier I say!

As the saga continued, I had some more trouble when it came time photograph it – of course right? Everything else has had a hitch, why not this part too? While taking it out of the refrigerator,  I managed to break the crust further, lol. I did hide that area for the photo though, I’ve had enough issues with the making of this recipe and wanted something that looked decent!

I have to say though that I really loved this pie and will make it again. I used to love our Big Boy Restaurant’s Fresh Strawberry Pie and this is way better, lol. Maybe because I made it myself and I can eat as much as I want??? It’s so super easy, I swear Harry could make it without help, as long as there were no setbacks such as I dealt with along the way!

If you get some fresh berries – do try this pie! I love that it has a few crust idea alternatives along with the one they utilize in the online recipe. The one in the online recipe is a true pat in the pan crust! Not one that should be rolled out and decided to be difficult, lol. I wish now I’d have tried that one first! Could have saved me a step! 😀