Homegrown Gourmet 6 - Frittata

It's Homegrown Gourmet time boys and girls!



They say that BREAKFAST is the most important meal of the day. I, um, generally don't get around to eating breakfast. Mornings are not my thing, and by the time I'm hungry at the office, it's around 10:30 or 11 AM- almost lunch. So this round of Homegrown Gourmet was a challenge.

Homegrown Gourmet challenges participants to make a dish that fits the chosen theme and incorporates local ingredients, recipes, or inspiration. Our host this round is Michelle at Culinography. When she announced we'd be working under the constraint of the first meal of the day, I was a little stumped.

I'm up here in New England, USA and honestly, breakfast 'round these parts is pretty utilitarian. We eat oatmeal, or toast, or yogurt, or cold cereal, or something equally dull. I mean, when you think of the Pilgrims, you aren't just waiting to get into the kitchen to cook up their gourmet meals. So interesting local recipes were out. So I moved on to ingredients... I've already used blueberries and lobster an didn't want to reuse them again so quickly. What to do, what to do...

Then it popped into my head, a little jingle that was prevalent in New England in the 80's from the local egg board... "Brown eggs are local eggs, and local eggs are fresh!" The color of an egg's shell is determined by the type of chicken that lays it- I've heard it's related to the color of the chicken, but I don't know if that's true. Either way, the chickens that are hearty enough to survive and produce eggs up north here create lovely brown eggs. I'll admit it, I always buy brown eggs because of that commercial, and New England is the only place in the States where brown eggs regularly out-sell white ones.



So what to do with eggs besides just scrambling them. I wanted something special, something worthy of a great blogging event. I rattled my brain, and came up with a frittata using local brown eggs and Maine potatoes, spiced up with smoked Gouda and bacon. It was quite tasty, and could be modified to add any type of delicious meat or veggie. I will say though, I think I found the recipe for glue- it's shredded Maine potatoes and chopped onion. Dang, that was sticky stuff! I could not for the life of me get the taters crisp, which is a shame, because it would have enhanced the meal. Maybe next time I'll use baked potato shreds rather than raw potatoes. To top the whole thing off, I decorated my plate with Cape Cod dried cranberries for presentation!


Maine Brown Egg Frittata

• 4 Slices Cooked Bacon
  
• 2-3 Maine Potatoes, shred (I recommend cooking whole, then shredding.)
  
• 1 Small Onion, chopped
  
• 6 Eggs
  
• 1/2 C. Sliced Fresh Mushrooms
  
• 1 tsp. Fresh Thyme Leaves
  
• 1 C. Smoked Gouda, shred
  
• Black Pepper to taste

1. Pre heat oven to 400 degrees.
   
2. In a skillet, cook the potato and onion in a little bit of oil, or you can use the same pain you cooked the bacon in. This is what I did, although I poured out most of the grease, so just a thin layer was left.
   
3. Cook the potatoes and onions until the potatoes are crisp. Hopefully you won't end up with a ball of glue like I did!
   
4. Spread potato mixture over the bottom of a pie plate and set aside.
   
5. In a medium bowl, crack all the eggs and scramble. Stir in the mushrooms, thyme, Gouda, and pepper. Crumble in the bacon to the eggs, and stir in. Pour egg mixture over the potatoes in the pie plate.
   
6. Bake in the hot oven for about 20 minutes or until the eggs in the center is solid and set up.