Frittata Redoux

Another sunny day today and another frittata. I had so much fun making one on Saturday - yesterday was too cloudy for solar cooking - that I made one for our dinner's main course. I even had enough time and sun to make a big pot of split pea soup to go with it.

The ingredient of today's frittata are potatoes and fennel (sliced paper thin), leeks, spinach, and of course eggs. Martin wasn't very hungry tonight so we have enough left over to make sandwiches for tomorrow's lunch.

Solar Frittata for Lunch

Sometimes it's the improvised meals that come out the best. We're going to Cibo with friends for dinner tonight. It was a bright sunny morning. A perfect day for a nice solar cooked lunch. After foraging around in the refrigerator, I came up with some eggs, zucchini, leeks, potatoes, and some fresh mint. I figured I could use these to make a decent frittata. I started off by sauteing the leeks and the sliced zucchini in a cast iron frying pan. When they were just beginning to soften I transfered them to a bowl to cool and tossed them with some chopped mint. Then I lined the frying pan with some finely sliced potatoes using a mandolin to get them paper thin. In another bowl I beat six eggs with a little milk, some grated parmesan, salt, and pepper. I mixed the eggs and the cooled vegetables together and poured everything over the potatoes. The was a slight moment of panic when I realized I'd never put the frying pan in the Sun Oven before; luckily it fit. The result was a lovely golden brown frittata with zucchini on one side and potatoes on the other. I was hoping there'd be some leftover for us to offer our friends as an appetizer before going out, but no such luck - we polished it off in one go.

Solar Cooking Stack

Today's dinner was pretty much a repeat of last Monday's. Split pea soup, frittata with herbs and tomato salad. I had a whole week to come up with a way of cooking the frittata in the solar oven. I was pretty confident that cooking it in a glass pie pan or a silicone cake pan would work. I also wanted to be able to cook both the soup and the frittata at the same time. Here's how I did it. For the soup I used a graniteware pot that was not too tall. A taller pan would not have left enough room for the frittata. For the frittata I opted for the silicone cake pan because it's easier to handle and doesn't slip. I put the soup pan lid on upside down and put the frittata on top of that. I covered the silicone pan with a glass lid that I removed towards the end of cooking to let the frittata brown. This is a much easier way to cook a frittata since there's no risk of burning it. Next time I may try turning it so it will brown on both sides but it may be a while before I make another one since frittata is not Martin's favorite thing.