Veggie frittata

This is one of our family's favorites!  It's simple, and loaded with veggies. As with most of what I cook, I don't use a recipe, I just judge quantities by how many people I'm serving. I usually figure in three eggs per person and whatever looks like one serving of veggies per person. Some eat more, and others eat less, so it evens out. I also try to pick veggies whose color compliments the yellow of the eggs. Tonight's veggies included red pepper, asparagus, mushrooms and onions. I roughly chopped all of them, small enough that no one needed a knife to eat.

Next I took nine eggs because there were only three of us, added a bit of water, and whisked them.

I love my cast iron skillets. They're less expensive to purchase than fancy cookware and they don't have any chemicals on their surface to make them non-stick. Did you know the chemicals used in Teflon will kill a bird when heated? If the fumes are that bad for a bird, what will they do to us? Remember the canary in the coal mine? Perhaps we need to think about that when thinking about using non-stick cookware! Plus, how much of those toxic chemicals leach into our food? Cast iron is naturally non-stick when used properly. Most of the time I just scrape the food out with the spatula, rinse, then wipe the pan clean. If it looks a bit dry, I just rub some oil onto it with the paper towel I used to dry it, then it's naturally non-stick for next time.

I put a half stick butter into the cast-iron skillet, let it melt, then sauteed the vegetables until they started to soften. Then I added the eggs, let them sit on the burner for a few minutes to let the bottom of them set and brown, then I moved them to the oven so they would cook through, another benefit of cast-iron, it can be moved to the oven. I have an Aga, which is a topic for another story, but suffice it to say, it's always on and the temperatures are approximate. I'd probably set a regular oven to 375. In my Aga, I set it on the bottom of the upper right hand oven (in case you're an Aga owner). Check on it after about ten minutes. It will be puffed up when it's finished, but you can stick a knife in it to test if it's done. Just slice and serve!