Fridge Frittata

What with the busy weekend I've just had - every night out Friday to Monday - the cooking and shopping lapsed a bit. We've had a simple steak, salad and oven chips dinner, featuring the last of the salads from the previous week's shopping. Luckily stuff from the growers' market is so fresh that it keeps longer. About half of the remains in the fridge was compost material, but we still had enough good for a decent green salad. We've also had takeaway noodles from Tudo in O'Connor, and a nice meal at Pulp Kitchen in Ainslie.

I did manage to make a "fridge frittata" to use up all sorts of odds and ends. This is a great one for the everyday repertoire. Basically, it's just leftovers, odds and ends, and eggs. I used some fabulous free range eggs and the colour was a gorgeous bright yellow. That is no false colour in the image, it was that lurid!

To make this one, I chopped an onion in medium dice, and sauteed it in olive oil over a low heat for about 10 minutes with - wait for it! - uncooked oven chips. I was going to use some old potatoes, but they were too far sprouted and soft. Compost for them, too. I remember reading somewhere that you could make quite a decent frittata with leftover chips, and this seemed worth a try. It worked OK.

After ten minutes I added some softer vegetables - some red and green capsicum, and a zucchini. Five minutes later, the lightest - shredded silverbeet and sorrel leaves. When everything was done, I poured over half a dozen beaten eggs. You want enough to cover the vegetables. Let it mostly set on the stovetop, finishing the top under the grill. A non-stick frypan makes it easier to extract neatly.

This one was very simple: no herbs, no cheese, nothing. With it, we had steamed broccoli and some grilled haloumi with a squeeze of lemon. I liked it; the Bloke seemed to think it was too vegetabley.

You can ring all sorts of changes on this basic idea. Herbs, spices, cheese, any vegetable as long as it's cooked by the time you add the eggs. Nothing too watery, or the egg won't set enough: be sparing with tomatoes, and dry your spinach well. You can add meat, like salami, sausage, bacon or ham. The Bloke would probably have liked it better that way.