Favorite Quick Things to Make for Dinner that Make Me Look Like I Have it All Together When My Honey Walks Through That Door

One of my personal favorites is Frittata. And now that three family members are out for the evening, two boys safely in the bathtub, and a messy kitchen counter successfully being ignored, I will tell you about it. I used to read about frittatas in cookbooks and get nervous. “A crustless quiche” they’d say, and that didn’t sound very fun, because the crust was my favorite part of the quiche. What they didn’t stress was that without a crust, it means that you don’t have to roll out a crust, and the whole thing can be put together lickety split. One wild night though, the frozen crust wasn’t in the freezer where I had left it, and with 30 minutes ‘til showtime, I had to make a fast decision and gave the frittata a try. I LOVED IT! We all thought it was delicious (even the kids). It was hearty enough for the husband, and I grew especially fond because I could 1) cook it all in one pan 2) not measure 3) use up the random leftovers found on the refrigerator dive, 4) get dinner on the table in about 20 minutes.

For example, leek, ham and gruyere cheese makes a fabulous frittata combination and I’ll put that in the recipe below, but tonight what I fished out of the fridge, and subsequently put in the frittata was: a few slices of ham, chopped up, some oven fried potatoes and green peas that were in the same leftover container, about a tablespoon of goat cheese, a handful of already grated cheddar cheese left from lunch. I also added some chopped fresh oregano from the indoor pot my sweet friend brought me. It was great! and filling! and cheap! and fast! and easy! And, I might add, naturally gluten free.

The Frittata

What you need:

cast iron pan

1 T. of butter

leek or onion, chopped

3-4 slices of ham, cut into squares

4-5 eggs

milk

salt and pepper

1/2 cup grated gruyere cheese

What to do:

Preheat oven to 400*F. In a bowl, beat the eggs and add a few tablespoons of milk and salt and pepper. Heat the cast iron pan over medium high heat and melt the butter. Brown the leeks or onions for a few minutes until they are getting tender, then add the ham and brown that too for a couple minutes. Pour in the egg mixture, turn off the stove and sprinkle the cheese on top. Pop in the oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, until it is firm. This gives you time to set the table and clean up the kitchen a little, or go read your friend’s blog!

What are your favorite fast dinners?

Makin’ It Work – the Real Story of the Merovingians

Early last week as we sat down to do history, and the kids were making grumbly noises about coloring their maps, I remembered that I had been thinking we were overdue for a "craft." They do spice up history so. I vaguely remembered something in the activity book about making some sort of decorative something. Cool, I thought, they can color that while I read. "Okay, kids, today we will make Merovingian brooches," I said in my yeah, I've got it all together voice. Foolishly I said this before reading all the instructions. They said:

You will need:

• white unlined paper check
• pencil check
• gold, blue, red and yellow Sculpey, WHAT??!! Sculpey?? I thought we were coloring!
• copper wire, at least 16 gauge, at hardware stores, Copper Wire??!! When was the last time I was at a hardware store?? No trip planned today.
• hammer, okay, whew, got one of those, but what will we hammer?
• drinking glass check
• glass pie plate check
• pin back (at craft stores) um….maybe we can figure something else out…

After panicking, I remembered that there might actually be some Sculpey left unused in a crafty drawer downstairs. “Hang on, just a minute kids, keep coloring the maps.” Ah! There was indeed Sculpey! Just enough to make us some dandy brooches. Back upstairs. Ta Da! “Here kids, we shall make our Merovingian brooches out of this Sculpey! Too bad about the wire, that would’ve looked cool.” Marina, looking at me funny, “Don’t we have some copper wire? Down with the beading stuff?” Oh. Maybe we do….back down to the crafty drawers…yes, indeed some copper wire, not 16 gauge, but never mind that. From then on, I sat down, took a deep breath and read all the instructions out loud. And it worked, and our brooches turned out pretty neat.

Then of course, we needed an event to which to wear our brooches, so we hatched the notion of a Merovingian meal. Merovingians were sort of descendants of the Gaulish tribes, sort of like Asterix, right? And there was a pork tenderloin the freezer we could have for wild boar and we mixed up some lovely pink magic potion, also a la Asterix. A little historically off, but festive! There were instructions in the book for making yarn wigs, and I was just going to use the big skein of unused green yarn I found downstairs, but there was general outcry against green hair, so I caved and actually bought yarn to make the wigs, which went against my plan of using up what we have. Peter almost cried because we were making him wear a wig and no amount of telling him how fierce and manly the Merovingians were could allay his distress. In the end, he came around because Manu set a good example as Clovis. I was Clotilda, but yesterday I placed a ban on posting dorky photos of one’s mother.