Breakfast Frittata

I love to cook!  I have since I was young.  I remember learning to cook eggs when we I was about 6 years old.  This is a love my daughter already has at 5!  She has been helping to pour and mix ingredients since she was 2 years old. We have even allowed her to cook scrambled eggs with (extreme) supervision.  Our parenting style has never been to limit our daughter based on age, but allow her to do as much as she is able, the heck conventional wisdom!

Tonight, dinnertime snuck up on us.  Carrie had planned to make Ham and Bean Soup, but she had forgotten to soak the beans until it was too late.  No problem!  I stepped up, peaked into the freezer and refrigerator and found some things to work with: half a package of sausage links, frozen bacon, and lots of eggs.  I knew we had some potatoes and onions.  A Breakfast Frittata was the logical choice!  See recipe below!

Cast Iron is our go-to cookware these days.  For this recipe, our cast iron skillet was the obvious choice.

As the bacon was frozen, I decided to cut half the slab perpendicular into 1/8 inch strips, and brown these in two batches.  I found this provided a superior result for our purposes than cooking the strips and then crumbling!  It cocked very fast and evenly.  It was crisp in just a minute or two!

In the past, when making hash browns or hash with potatoes, the potatoes would become sticky and sort of gummy. Not appetizing.  To solve this, we began squeezing out the liquid in the potatoes and this improved our final results abundantly!  To do this, we would wrap a potato’s worth of shreds between paper towels and squeeze the liquid into the sink.  We’ve also used day old baked potatoes and had success as well.

Carrie and I tag-teamed the meal’s preparation.  We work great as a team! Despite a playful squabble or a misunderstanding here or there, things just go smoother and quicker when we both pitch in!

When all was said and done, the Breakfast Frittata was a hit!  We had two small dinner guests tonight, twin girls whom are about to turn 4 years old!  Their parents say that they are quite picky eaters, but they always love my cooking!  They both asked for seconds and ate every bite!

I hope your family enjoys this recipe as much as ours!

 

Breakfast Frittata

 TOTAL TIME: Prep: 30 min. Bake: 20 min. + standing

MAKES: 8 servings

Equipment: 10 inch ovenproof skillet

Ingredients

• ½ Lb bacon slices
• 8 Sausage links
• 10 eggs
• 1 Tbsp dried parsley
• 3 Tbsp milk
• ¼ tsp Creole seasoning or seasoned salt of choice
• 1/8 tsp pepper
• 2 medium potatoes, shredded (about 2 cups); liquid squeezed out
• 1 medium sweet onion, chopped
• 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°. In a large bowl, whisk eggs, parsley, milk, seasoned salt and pepper; set aside.
2. In a 10-in. ovenproof skillet, cook sausage until cooked through, set aside. Cook bacon over medium heat until crisp. Set aside. Slice sausage into coins and crumble bacon once cool enough to handle.
3. Add potatoes and onions to bacon grease. Cook until potatoes are tender. Return crumbled bacon and sausage coins to the skillet. Mix and remove from heat.
4. Sprinkle with cheese. Top with egg mixture
5. Bake Uncovered 20-25 minutes or until eggs are completely set. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.
   Yield: 8 servings

I used the recipe below as a template, making changes to fit our tastes and what we had on hand.  I rarely follow a recipe to the T!

http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/potato—bacon-frittata