sweet potato, kale and gruyere mini frittatas

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sweet potato, kale and gruyere frittatas

For the past year and a half I've been at home with our son, mostly just making sure that he stays alive. Before we were even pregnant, I knew I wanted to be at home with him if it was even remotely possible. My mom was home, running a day care when we were growing up and my husbands mom was a stay at home mom. Neither of us had the experience of a working mom, so naturally we leaned that way. I have found the time to be incredibly challenging and also an experience I am incredibly grateful for. There are days when I feel like I'm just on repeat trying to keep him from swallowing literally everything and it's all I can do to console him with each toddler disappointment ("why did you give me exactly what I asked for?! WHAAAAAH!"). Most days though, I'm amazed by every single thing he does. How is it possible that just a little over a year ago, all he could do was eat, poop and sleep? Now he goes to the fridge and asks for cheese and then takes me by the hand to our room where he asks for the guitar from under the bed so he can dance while I play the only four chords I know that go together. It's all so surreal. 

packed up frittatas

It feels like we have walked through a thousand transitions in the last year. Many were rough and some I dreaded. When Oliver was still on a bottle, it was so easy to just pop some pre-made formula in our bag and head out the door. He had a meal (a no-brainer meal) at any given moment. I was so used to the convenience. At a year, when we were moving to a completely solid food diet, I had a lot of anxiety of how it would all work. What do I feed him? How do I know he is getting what he needs? What if he hates everything? I just couldn't anticipate enough about the situation to feel confident in the next phase. Each day was a little easier and I was able to be more creative as we went along. Now, if I can stay on top of things, we have a great range of food we all like. One of the great things about making most of his food is that I can make things I like too. That way when we're out, we both have a quick, healthful snack. 

Each week, I try to make a high protein, vegetable packed and portable snack. Some weeks it's mini muffins or quinoa patties and others it's some variation of a mini frittata. Usually, I peek in the fridge and take inventory of the vegetables I haven't used and those become the foundation for whatever snack I'm going to make. He's not really into anything green yet, so this is a good way to get some greens into his cute little body. The recipe below is for my absolute favorite frittata combo. It would be perfect as a regular sized frittata too, served to friends on a Saturday with crusty, buttered bread and a strong cup of coffee. 

sweet potato, kale + gruyere mini frittatas

makes 24

Ingredients:

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 2 cups kale, chopped small
  • 1 clove garlic, minced or grated with a microplane
  • pinch of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper
  • 1 small sweet potato, diced small (about 1 cup)
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon dried oregano
  • pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 6 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 tablespoons whole milk
  • 1 cup grated gruyere (on the mid sized holes of a box grater), about 3 oz, divided

Preparation: 

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 350 and oil a 24 cup, or two 12 cup mini muffin tins and set aside.
  2. Heat the oil in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the kale and garlic and season with salt and pepper. Cook until just starting to wilt, about two minutes. Transfer to a medium bowl and set aside.
  3. Add the sweet potato, oregano and cumin to the skillet and season with salt and pepper. If you need to, add another drizzle of oil to coat the sweet potato. Cook until just softening and starting to brown, about 5-6 minutes.  
  4. Add the eggs, milk and half of the cheese to the bowl with the kale. Stir to combine. Season lightly with salt and pepper. Divide the mixture among the 24 cups, using about a tablespoon of mixture for each. Sprinkle the sweet potato over the top of each, pressing it down to submerge it. Top each cup with a sprinkle of cheese and salt and freshly ground pepper. 
  5. Bake until cooked through, about 15 minutes. Let cool in the pan on a rack for about 5 minutes and then remove the frittatas from the pan and transfer to a cooling rack. These can be refrigerated for up to three days or frozen for up to one month. 

weeknight chili

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weeknight chili

There was a time when my husband thought he had married a hoarder. When we were first married, I was just learning to cook. I was never very interested in really cooking. Lasagnas with pre made ingredients, chocolate chip cookies and the occasional taco made the rotation but that was about the end of it. Whether it was my new domestic role or the fact that we moved to a city that seemed to find it's very life and breath in the quality of food it produced, I'm unsure, but I rapidly became obsessed with cooking and baking and eating. Along with my new hobby came the collection of supplies, gadgets and cookbooks. I was sucked into all sorts of silly things that were largely unnecessary, but my cookbook collection was really starting to form and when I say form, I mean form a problem. When I had filled all the shelves we had, my husband, very sweetly I'm sure, suggested I have a "one in, one out" rule. Now, I know some of you can sympathize with me on this. I thought that was a terrible idea. They all brought something unique to our kitchen, man. He was worried. I get that. He was afraid we would have to start making walkways through the stacks of books teetering to the ceiling and that we would start to find old pizza buried beneath them. Don't fret. I slowed down and I even got rid of a bunch for the sake of my husbands sanity. He was relieved that he didn't have to stage an intervention. I can't say the same for my mug collection. There may be an intervention any day for that one. 

One hutch in our house is basically dedicated to my current collection of cookbooks. I have to say, the fact that I can fit them all in a tiny little hutch is pretty darn good, don't you think? They serve as inspiration for our weekly menu planning and for recipes on occasion. Most nights, I'm throwing some things in a pot and hoping that my understanding of how flavors work together serves me properly. This setup can be a problem when I make something I really love because recreating it is difficult when I can't remember what I put in it.

Chili is the biggest culprit of my culinary amnesia. I don't think I've ever made chili the same way twice. The base is generally the same but each time it's slightly different than the one before. That's the great thing about a big pot of meat, beans and tomatoes, it's a blank canvas.  

This particular iteration is one of my favorites and the only one I've written down. The addition of the curry and coconut milk make it a bit more exotic and might make some die hard chili fans cringe (the addition of quinoa might do that, too), but I love the riff on an old standard. If I had more time, I would have served this over a baked sweet potato. 

weeknight chili

serves 8

Ingredients: 

  • 1 large yellow onion, diced
  • 3 large cloves of garlic, minced
  • 1 1/2 pounds ground turkey, 93% lean
  • 2 tablespoons smoked paprika
  • 1 tablespoon cumin
  • 2 tablespoons mild curry powder
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 15 oz can black beans, drained
  • 2 15 oz cans pinto beans, drained
  • 2 28 oz cans diced tomatoes (I like fire roasted if you can find them)
  • 3 tablespoons kosher salt
  • 1 cup cooked quinoa, cook according to package instructions
  • 1/3 cup light coconut milk
  • 3/4 cup diced red onion
  • 1 avocado diced

Preparation: 

  1. Heat a large pot over medium high heat. Drizzle in a bit of olive oil and add the onion and garlic. Saute until the onion is getting soft, about 5 minutes. Add the turkey and the spices and cook until the turkey is almost cooked through, about 6 minutes. 
  2. Pour the beans and tomatoes into the pot and season with kosher salt. Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer and cover. Let the chili simmer for about 30 minutes if you're in a hurry and up to 45 minutes if you have some more time. The flavor will concentrate a little more the longer you simmer it. When you're ready to serve, stir in the quinoa and coconut milk. Top with red onion and avocado and serve.