Waste Not, Want Not

Do you ever find that you've been a little overzealous on your recent trips to the farmer's market?

Do you ever open the fridge to find there are five or six different types of veggies that are not going to last another 24 hours?

That was me last night.

I went looking for a snack a few hours after dinner and realized that I had a large amount of produce facing the garbage bin if I didn't use it immediately. Uh oh.

I pulled all of them out, everything that looked like it was close to gone, and decided it was time for a fritatta. Fritattas are the best way I know to use up fresh veggies.

I found that I had celery, carrots, cauliflower, zucchini, yellow squash, tomatoes, spring onions, and speckled butter beans. I decided to cook the beans separately and refrigerate for dinner the next night. Everything else got chopped up in order of hardest to softest and sauteed in butter in a cast iron frying pan.

While my daughter tossed the veggies occassionally with a spatula, I mixed a dozen eggs with a little milk and some sea salt, black pepper, and crushed garlic.

As soon as all of the vegetables were tender, I turned off the burner and poured the egg mixture over them. All that was left was to place the entire pan in the oven on 425 degrees until a fork inserted in the center came out clean. This was a large one so it took about 35 minutes to cook fully. Didn't it come out beautifully?

What I love most about fritattas is that I can do all of the cooking at night and stick the whole pan in the fridge to reheat and serve the next morning. Leftovers from breakfast make a great lunch!

Of course, for dinner tonight we had those butter beans and there was nothing to do but heat them. Served with some leftover chicken, who needed anything else? Yum!