Thursday, August 8, 2013

freezable mini frittatas (frittate) :)

For those of you that know her story, my precious Momma has had a really, REALLY hard last couple years. Cancer... a car wreck... open heart surgery... she's basically been to Sheol and back.
 
Anyway, she really needed a BREAK, so my sister and I planned a trip and took our Mom to her favorite place on earth: Disney World. :)  It was REALLY fun (we hadn't been there in over a decade!)-- but I still wanted to be a blessing to the dear doctor while I was gone for a week.
check us out with The Mouse himself! :)

I made a ton of meals and stuck in the fridge/freezer, and here is one of my creations: Taking a good old recipe for Breakfast Casserole and modifying it for muffin tins!
 

The muffin tins not only take far less time to bake, but when done, you have individually-sized frittata's (frittate is probably the correct Italian plural form!) :) that can be frozen and microwaved later! :)

These were soooooooooooo easy to make, I'm not even going to write a recipe for them because the possibilities are ENDLESS!  

Here are the ingredients I used--just a teeny bit of each!  OH and first, remember to give a quick spritz of oil to each little muffin cup (it's worth it!).  After you oil your cups, I layered the ingredients in each cup, in this order =
  • frozen hash brown potatoes (you can use either cubed or shredded)
  • cooked turkey sausage crumbles
  • diced bell pepper
  • diced onion
  • salt & pepper
  • baby spinach leaves (torn up a little!)
  • 1 egg went in each cup; I chose to use a fork and scramble each egg around a little, but you don't have to do that if you don't want to!  You probably *should*, though, at least use a fork to make sure the egg gets down in all the cracks and helps the other ingredients stick together...!
  • NOTE: the reason they look so bright yellow/orange on top is because when they were done (after about 15-20 minutes on 350*F)... I took sharp Cheddar cheese in little slices and put it on top, and put the muffin tin back in the oven, but this time under the broiler, until the cheese was melted (about 5 min?)
But for goodness' sakes don't be limited to what I did here------ You could use an.y.thing!!!!!!!! Like....
  • tomatoes
  • any meat you wanted (bacon, ham, smoked salmon, Chorizo, even ground beef crumbles--like taco meat-- for a Mexican-inspired frittata, heck even shredded chicken... whatever you like!)
  • zucchini / summer squash
  • chopped asparagus
  • eggplant (however my husband thinks it smells like cadaver from his med school days, so we don't eat eggplant at my house.  sorry if I just ruined anything for anyone). :)
  • any herbs in the world (I was just lazy today)--- but gosh, anything would work depending on what you put with it!..... parsley, oregano, basil, sage, etc. etc.!!!
  • any cheese you like
These mini frittatas are awesome and SO versatile: you could easily do egg-whites only to lower cholesterol, and you could of course make them vegetarian very easily (like subbing Quinoa for the Hash Browns to give it a protein boost) ..The list of options goes on and on!

Have FUN with this-- SORRY I didn't take pictures of the assembly-- but hopefully that encourages you in the fact that they came together **so quickly**... it was over before I could grab my camera! 

I love being able to cook homemade things, freeze them, and eat them later!  The ultimate package, in my mind!! = Convenience PLUS Homemade! :)

If you try these, feel free to leave a comment and share with everyone the great combinations that you try!!!!  Buon appetito! :)