Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Sweet Potato Frittata

Though I'm a pretty die hard dessert-lover, I do actually cook real food on occasion. There are three important meals in my day: breakfast, dinner, and dessert (lunch = meh). And a satisfying dinner after a day of work and post-work run is sooooo good!
This frittata is an amalgamation of awesomeness, a combination of cheese and crispy bacon, a eggy symphony of sweet potatoes and spinach with a side of salad - all together, a delicious dish of dinner! 

A frittata is essentially a quiche sans crust (and you know how I feel about making crust). For this one I decided to up the ante by incorporating a "crust" of sweet potato discs, browned in bacon drippings. (Drool.)

Frittas are so easy - you can vary the ingredients depending on the season, and what you have in your fridge. Here's what I did:


Sweet Potato Frittata

- 1 lb bacon
- 1 onion, diced
- 6 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 box frozen spinach (I think it's 1 lb), thawed and drained
- 1/2 lb asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 8 oz feta cheese
- 2 sweet potatoes, cut into 1/2 inch thick discs (enough to line the bottom of your pan/skillet)
- salt and pepper to taste

Bring a medium-sized pot of water to a boil. Add asparagus and cook for 1 minute. Immediately drain asparagus in a colander and rinse with cold water (this will stop the cooking process and seal in the flavor). Set aside.

In a large skillet (I used non-stick, but whatever you have works), fry the bacon until crispy. Remove from pan onto paper towels. 

Turn the heat to medium. Add diced onion to bacon drippings and sauté one minute. Add sweet potato discs and cook for 3 minutes on each side (or until they get slightly browned and soft).

 In a large bowl whisk eggs and milk until completely blended. Whisk in spinach. Add about 1 teaspoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper.

Crumble bacon and add to the egg mixture.

Preheat broiler on low and position rack in the top half of your oven.

Pour egg mixture over potatoes and sprinkle with feta cheese. Turn the heat to medium-low, and cook until set (about 10 minutes). 

Transfer pan to oven. Ideally, your pan should have a metal handle (pr removable rubber handle). If that is the case, go ahead and close the oven to complete the cooking process. If, like mine, your pan doesn't have a removable handle, keep the oven door open. 

Broil for about 3 minutes, or until top begins to brown. 

I made a salad of the remaining 1/2 lb of asparagus, red bell pepper, cherry tomatoes, green leaf lettuce, a few spare bacon bits, parmesan cheese, and balsamic vinaigrette. 

I had some extra sweet potatoes, so I sprinkled them with parmesan cheese and baked them at 350* for 15 minutes. Yum!