Tomato Salad Topped Baked Spinach Frittata

This tomato salad topped baked spinach frittata is a delicious combination of richness from the eggs, ham and cheese and the sharp sweetness of the tomatoes with herbs. It makes a wonderful brunch, lunch or dinner dish!

Frittatas can be made on your stovetop in a skillet or baked in the oven. I created this one a while back when we were trying a low carb diet. I was craving quiche but crust was, of course, not on the plan. This frittata is basically a crustless quiche with a fancy Italian name.

You can adapt this recipe to use different cooked veggies or meat instead of the spinach and ham. Or change up the cheddar for your favorite semi-hard flavorful cheese. It’s all good.

Here’s a question for you: Am I the only one who buys ham that the family eats for two or three days and then abandons it? What do you do with it? I pop it in the freezer when it’s still in date and, while you cannot thaw it and still make decent sandwiches, it is perfect for quiche or omelets.

Tomato Salad Topped Baked Spinach Frittata

This recipe was inspired by a photo I saw in delicious.uk magazine for a ricotta tart. The mixed tomato salad that topped the tart was so pretty! Mine doesn’t have the green tomatoes because I couldn’t find any but I’m sure it is just as tasty.

Ingredients
For the frittata:
3 ounces or 85g sliced ham
2 ounces or 55g frozen spinach
4 large eggs
3/4 cup or 180ml cream
1/2 cup or 120ml milk
4 1/2 ounces or 125g sharp cheddar
2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
several good grinds of black pepper

To butter the baking dish or pan:
1 tablespoon butter

For baked topping:
2 oz or 57g sharp cheddar
Small handful green onion tops, chopped

For the herby salad:
1 lb or 450g mixed tomatoes, ripe but firm
Herbs of your choice  - I used a mix of flat-leaf parsley, tarragon and basil
Drizzle extra virgin olive oil
Drizzle white balsamic
Good pinch flaky sea salt
Few generous grinds of black pepper

Method
Preheat your oven to 400°F or 200°C and liberally butter your 9 in or 23cm quiche pan or baking dish.

Fry the chopped ham in a nonstick pan until it dries out a little and gets some browned crispy place. Remove from the pan and set aside to cool.

Thaw your spinach, then drain it and squeeze it as dry as possible.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, cream and milk. Stir in spinach and chopped basil.

 Next add the grated cheese, ham, sea salt and black pepper. Stir until well combined.

Pour the mixture into your buttered pan or dish.

Put it in the preheated oven and immediately turn the temperature down to 350°F. Bake for about 20-25 minutes or until it is almost set.

Remove the frittata from the oven and sprinkle on the topping cheese and green onions.

Return the pan to the oven for another 10 minutes or until the cheese is browning and the frittata is set.

Meanwhile, slice your large tomato and set the slices on a paper towel to dry them a little. Halve the smaller tomatoes and mix them with the other salad ingredients.

When the frittata is baked, remove it from the oven and leave to cool for at least 15-20 minutes before topping it first with the sliced tomatoes.

 Finally, top with the dressed tomato salad.

Slice to serve. Enjoy!

This month my Baking Blogger friends are sharing recipes with herbs. Check out the delicious recipes below! Many thanks to our group organizer and host, Sue of Palatable Pastime for all of her behind-the-scenes work.

• Baked Spaghetti with Sausage and Meatballs from Palatable Pastime
• Ham and Herbed Potatoes Au Gratin from Making Miracles
• Herb Roasted Chickpeas from Cook with Renu
• Herbed Chicken with Charred Romaine Salad from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• No Knead Herb Bread from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Oven-Braised Rabbit with Herbed Dumplings from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Quiche Lorraine with Herbs from Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• Sage and Caramelized Onion Sourdough Bread from Caroline's Cooking
• Rosemary & Garlic Baked Potato With Sour Cream from Sneha's Recipe
• Tomato Salad Topped Baked Spinach Frittata from Food Lust People Love

Baking Bloggers is a friendly group of food bloggers who vote on a shared theme and then post recipes to fit that theme one the second Monday of each month. If you are a food blogger interested in joining in, inquire at our Baking Bloggers Facebook group. We'd be honored if you would join us in our baking adventures.

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Easy Cornish Pasties #FoodieExtravaganza

Made with ground beef instead of tough stewing beef, the filling for these easy Cornish pasties is ready much more quickly, which means you will be munching on these beauties in record time.



Let me start by saying that these are not traditional Cornish pasties. Those are made with stewing beef cut in small pieces, cooked long and slow until tender. After making ground lamb version of a Lancashire Hot Pot, it occurred to me that Cornish pasties could get the same treatment. Like ground lamb, ground beef cooks much more quickly since it’s tender already!

One other difference from classic Cornish pasties is the shortcrust I used. We prefer a thin flaky crust but that means that that these guys are challenging to eat by hand unless you cut them in half. That’s probably high treason in Cornwall but I think it’s worth it! Hey, I’d eat these with a knife and fork if need be. Traditionally, Cornish pasties were made from a sturdier dough so they could be taken to work by tin miners, fishermen and farmers. The crimped side crust was actually discarded! If you'd like to read more about them, this article in the Guardian is short but interesting.

Easy Cornish Pasties

The filling for my easy Cornish pastries is very similar to what I make for cottage pie, except for the Worcestershire sauce. If you double the recipes, you can even use it to stuffed baked potatoes.

Ingredients
For the shortcrust dough:
312g flour
140g shortening (I use Crisco.)
1 teaspoon salt
6-7 tablespoons ice water

For the filling:
1 medium onion, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, peeled and minced
1 medium size potato, peeled and cut in cubes
1 medium carrot, diced to pea-size cubes
2 tablespoons olive oil
8 oz or 225g ground beef
2 tablespoons flour
2 cups or 480ml beef stock
fine sea salt to taste – depends on how salty your beef stock is!
freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup or 70g frozen peas
chopped parsley to garnish

To bake the Cornish Pasties:
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon water

Method

First, make the shortcrust pastry: In medium bowl with fork, lightly stir together flour and salt

With pastry blender, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

Sprinkle in cold water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with a fork after each addition until pastry just holds together.

Shape the pastry into a ball then press it flat. Wrap it in cling film and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Soak the carrot and potato in cool water so they don’t discolor.

Heat the oil in a large pot. Pop the ground beef in and fry it until it’s browned, even crispy in places, if possible. Add a little more oil if need be. Break up the beef into little pieces as it cooks. 

Add in the onion and garlic and cook for a few more minutes until they soften. 

Drain and add potato and carrot fry for a couple of minutes.

Add flour stir well and pour the beef stock over, and a generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper and stir some more. 

Reduce the heat, partly cover and leave to simmer for about 15-20 minutes or until the carrot and potato are almost completely cooked, stirring occasionally.

When the filling is cooked, taste and add more salt and pepper if needed. I found my beef broth salty enough so I didn’t add any salt. Stir in the peas. 

Leave the filling to cool completely. I put mine in a bowl in the refrigerator so it would cool more quickly.

Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180C. Line a baking pan with baking parchment.

Separate the shortcrust pastry into six equal pieces. Roll each piece out into a circle of about 7 in or 19cm. Brush around the edges with water.

Put 1/6th of the filling on one half of the circle. 

Fold the pastie in a half and seal it by crimping the edge all the way around. 

Place the pasties on the lined baking pan and glaze them with the egg beaten with the water to loosen.

Bake them in your preheated the oven for about 30 minutes or until the outsides are golden and the insides are bubbling hot.

Cool them and enjoy warm or cold. I like them the best warmed, whether when just baked or after a short spell in an oven to rewarm. 

Enjoy!

This month my Foodie Extravaganza friends are sharing empanada recipes at the instigation of our host, Sue of Palatable Pastime. Sue was kind enough to allow us the latitude of sharing any empanada-shaped pastry so I chose these Cornish Pastries. Same shape, different filling.

Check out all the other lovely empanadas or empanada-inspired recipes we are sharing this month:

• Argentine Beef Empanadas from Making Miracles
• Beef Empanadas from Sneha's Recipe
• Easy Cornish Pasties from Food Lust People Love
• Easy Empanadas from A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Empanadas de Atún (Argentinian Tuna Empanadas) from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Empanadas de Picadillo from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Indian Spiced Empanadas from Sara's Tasty Buds
• Spiced Potato Empanadas from Palatable Pastime

Foodie Extravaganza is where we celebrate obscure food holidays by cooking and baking together with the same ingredient or theme each month. Posting day is always the first Wednesday of each month. If you are a blogger and would like to join our group and blog along with us, come join our Facebook page Foodie Extravaganza. We would love to have you! If you're a spectator looking for delicious tid-bits check out our Foodie Extravaganza Pinterest Board!

Pin these Easy Cornish Pastries!

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Flourless Banana Peanut Butter Muffins #MuffinMonday

If you are looking for a tasty gluten-free snack that that can be made in ONE BOWL, these flourless banana peanut butter muffins fit the bill perfectly. They are surprisingly fluffy inside and just the right amount of sweet.

When the coronavirus pandemic reached US shores, I wasn’t surprised when paper goods and staples disappeared off of grocery store shelves. What I didn’t expect was the run on flour and sugar! Last week I managed to score a bag of all-purpose flour, one of the last on the shelf, but bread flour is still AWOL.

Bread flour tip: While bread flour is hard to come by, even online, if you have all-purpose flour, you can order vital wheat gluten to add in for bread. I just got mine delivered yesterday and almost high-fived the Amazon delivery guy. Instead, I offer him a sparkling water, wrapped in a disinfectant wipe. And I thanked him copiously for being out there and doing his job. So grateful!

If you’ve been reading this space for the last couple of weeks, you know that I have ripe bananas in my freezer that were originally earmarked for banana cream pie. If you do too, then you have all the ingredients to make these muffins with staples like peanut butter, eggs, honey and spices.

Even better, this recipe requires only one bowl! Baking muffins could not be easier.

Flourless Peanut Butter Banana Muffins 

This recipe is adapted from one on detoxinista.com. The original author used all natural peanut butter with no added sugar or oil. I buy Jif peanut butter – extra crunchy and reduced fat smooth, both of which have added sugar and/or corn syrup – so my muffins are probably a little sweeter than the originals, which was just sweet enough for us.

Ingredients
1 cup or 250g peanut butter (crunchy or smooth – I used a combo)
2 very ripe bananas, mashed (about 1 cup mashed)
3 whole eggs
1/4 cup or 60ml honey
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon double acting baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Method
Preheat your oven to 350ºF or 180°C and prepare a 12-cup muffin pan by lining it with paper muffin liners.

In a medium bowl, combine the peanut butter, mashed banana, baking soda, vanilla, eggs, honey, cinnamon and salt.

Beat well with a balloon whisk until smooth and glossy.  This is going to be a very runny batter but don’t stress. It’s all good.

Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups.

Bake in your preheated oven for about 20-25 minutes. They puff right up into rounded tops and then will sink a bit. This is normal. Deep breathes. The muffins are done when they are well-colored and springy to the touch.

Remove the muffin pan to a wire rack and leave them to cool for about 10 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and cool completely on the wire rack. It's amazing how light they are.

Enjoy!

Check out all of the other great Muffin Monday recipes my friends are sharing today!

• Banana Oatmeal Muffins from Zesty South Indian Kitchen
• Beer and Cheese Muffins from Passion Kneaded
• Flourless Banana Peanut Butter Muffins from Food Lust People Love
• Matcha Coconut MOffins from Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Pancake and Sausage Muffins from Making Miracles
• Small Batch Corn Muffins from Palatable Pastime
• Sourdough Cranberry Muffins from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Waffle Muffins from A Day in the Life on the Farm

#MuffinMonday is a group of muffin loving bakers who get together once a month to bake muffins. You can see all of our lovely muffins by following our Pinterest board. Updated links for all of our past events and more information about Muffin Monday can be found on our home page.

Pin these flourless banana peanut butter muffins! 

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