Here they are: the first tomatoes from my garden. Small, but plump and red and juicy. What on earth was I going to cook with these, the first tomatoes I had ever grown myself? This frittata was born out of several things. First, I had lovely, fresh tomatoes, and I wanted to showcase them in something simple and something they wouldn’t disappear in. Second, we needed breakfast and I had eggs and cheese. Third, I didn’t want to wait for a breakfast casserole/quiche to bake forever in the oven, but I was bored of the standard omelet. And so the pan frittata was inspired. Not really a true frittata, which is usually cooked mostly on the stovetop and finished under a broiler, because the pans I have access to are not oven-safe, so all the cooking had to happen on the stovetop. In the end it did turn out to be a tasty breakfast that was filling and perfectly showcased the ripe, fresh tomatoes.

Six eggs and probably a cup of shredded cheese – what I had on hand, which turned out to be mixed cheddar and asiago. I ended up using more like a half to three-quarters of a cup of the cheese; I just added cheese to the eggs until it looked like enough for my tastes.

I sautéed a clove of garlic to give the frittata some extra flavor.

In go the eggs (beaten), cheese and the fresh tomato slices are laid on top. This is a small sauté pan (maybe 6 inches in diameter?), but the eggs will puff up a lot. I realized too late that this would have been awesome with some fresh basil or oregano from my garden. Oh well.

I let it cook, covered, for probably 8–10 minutes until the eggs were completely set and cooked through. If I had an oven safe pan, I probably would have let it cook on the stovetop for 3 minutes and then sprinkle it with more cheese and put it in the oven for another 3–4 minutes.

Like I said, it turned out to be a great way to showcase the lovely fresh tomatoes from my garden. It’s kind of like an omelet that never gets flipped over, and because it doesn’t get messed with the eggs stay really puffy. This was a quick and easy breakfast that I will probably make again; maybe I’ll even make a real frittata once I get some oven-safe pans.

Fresh Tomato Pan Frittata

Ingredients

• 6 large eggs, beaten
• 1 large tomato, sliced
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup shredded cheese
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• olive oil
• a tablespoon or two of fresh herbs (optional)

Directions

1. Sauté garlic in enough olive oil to thoroughly coat the pan until browned and fragrant.
2. Combine the eggs and herbs in a small bowl. Pour eggs into a small sauté pan. Sprinkle shredded cheese over the surface and lay tomatoes on top.
3. Cover and cook over low heat for 8–10 minutes, or until eggs are cooked through.

The same weekend I grilled the pizza I came across this recipe for Grilled Asiago Rounds on King Arthur’s baking blog. While they were suggested for eating with a dip of some kind, I immediately thought that they could be split horizontally for sandwiches and figured I might as well go all out on the dough grilling and try these the same day as the pizza. This required some creative planning to make sure everything went on the grill in order (I wanted to cook the pizza last so that it would stay hot for dinner), but everything worked out perfectly and these rounds cooked up perfectly, and made for fantastic sandwiches.

Instead of all-purpose flour, I substituted the 12-grain flour blend for the overnight starter. This only made up a small part of the flour, so it wasn’t super noticeable in the finished product, but it probably lent a little more heft.

The recipe called for semolina to make up part of the flours that went in at this point, but despite searching I could not locate it in either of my two main grocery stores. Of course, several days later I found it in one, and I probably could have found it at Trader Joe’s, but I just substituted all-purpose instead and it worked fine. I’ll probably make these again, though, and I might try the semolina to see if it makes a big difference in the finished product. Also you can see the shredded asiago cheese that is mixed in at this point. I also completely forgot the parsley that would also be mixed in at this point. Oh well.

Mixed together by hand it made a sticky but cohesive dough that easily pulled away from the sides of the bowl.

After kneading the dough was as smooth as dough containing shredded cheese could be, but it was actually stickier than before. The bakers on the King Arthur blog suggested reducing the liquid a bit if I was substituting all-purpose flour for semolina, and I did to a small extent, but it was rather unscientific and the dough might have been stickier than it should have been. I ended up adding flour through the floured surface it had to be poured onto, and in the end it turned out fine.

I let the dough rise in its bowl, mainly because my dough rising bucket was currently occupied by the pizza dough.

My rounds, all divided. The recipe says you would get 16 four-inch rounds about 1/4″ thick; when I started dividing them I knew that was just not happening, at least not for my purposes. I got about 8 rounds that were probably 4 to 4.5 inches in diameter and somewhere between 1/2 and 1/4 inches thick. At this point they can be refrigerated until you are ready to grill them, but luckily my grill was ready and so was I.

In order to get them off my table and onto the grill I needed to oil up a tray and my hands with olive oil and basically cover these guys in a thin layer. This was also necessary when I put them on the grill to prevent them from sticking. I also cleaned and seasoned my grill with a half and onion, stuck on a fork and dipped in olive oil, before I put these on there. They got put over medium high heat (in between the high heat mounded coals and the low heat area) for 2–4 minutes, depending on how fast it looked like they were cooking. I tried to keep the cover on the grill as much as possible to cook them thoroughly. When they got flipped they moved over to the cool side to cook for another 4 minutes. I didn’t cover them with a metal pan to help them cook through – I tried, but there was no covering them all with a pan or covering them and putting the cover on the grill too – but if you keep the cover on your grill, I think it serves the same purpose. In any case, it worked!

They smelled amazing, and it was all we could do to keep ourselves from eating them right after they came off. I think their cool-down time probably helped them cook through a little more too, though. They were perfectly cooked and the cheese just kind of disappeared into the dough, imparting flavor but without any noticeable pieces. The grilled flavor was subtle but present, and the rounds held up great split in half as sandwiches. It was fun to grill the bread (and fast!) instead of baking it, and it was something I will no doubt do again.

Grilled Asiago Rounds (adapted from King Arthur Flour)

Ingredients

Starter

• 3/4 cup 12-grain flour, or all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/8 teaspoon instant yeast

Dough

• All of the starter
• 3/4 cup water
• 1/2 cup all-purposed flour
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 2 1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 1/2 cups freshly grated asiago cheese
• 2 tablespoons dried parsley, or 1/4 cup chopped fresh

Directions

1. For the starter, in a small bowl, combine the flour, water, and yeast. Cover and let sit at room temperature for at least 8 hours, or overnight.
2. In the bowl of your mixer combine the starter, water, all-purpose flour, yeast, and olive oil, stirring until the mixture is smooth.
3. Add the bread flour, salt, cheese, and parsley, and mix until a soft dough forms. Knead the dough with a mixer for 6 to 8 minutes until it’s smooth and springy.
4. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap, and let rise until doubled, 45 minutes.
5. After the dough has risen, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and divide it into 8 pieces. Roll each piece into a ball and let the dough rest for 10 minutes while you make sure the grill is hot and clean. You can refrigerate the dough, covered, for up to 3 hours at this point, if you need to adjust your timing or want to prep things ahead of time. Set up your grill so that one section is hot and another is low heat, with a medium-hot section between them.
6. Flatten the balls of dough to 4.5″ rounds about 1/4″ thick. Spray or brush the rounds lightly with some olive oil, and place a few of them on a medium-hot section of the grill. Cover the grill and cook for 2–4 minutes, flip the dough over and move to a low-heat portion of the grill. Cover the grill again and cook another 4 minutes, then remove from the grill and let cool somewhat. Repeat with the remaining pieces of dough.

A friend was having a birthday brunch potluck, so I was looking for a recipe that I could quickly make the morning of, would travel well, and of course be a tasty addition. I considered recipes I’d already made and were thus proven, and I considered sweeter items like muffins or scones, but I ultimately settled on these cheddar paprika drop biscuits from Joy the Baker. I think I’ve only ever made roll-out biscuits before, and the drop kind were definitely simple and delicious.

First the dry ingredients, including the paprika, go in the bowl and get mixed together.

Like a good biscuit, the cold butter is cut in with a pastry cutter (or forks or the end of a whisk) so that it is crumbly. It was pretty warm in my kitchen the morning I made these, so I definitely had to put the mix back in the fridge for a bit to keep the butter from getting too melty. I took the opportunity to prepare my baking sheets with parchment paper.

I finely shredded about 6 ounces worth of extra sharp cheddar and mixed it well with the flour and butter mixture, making sure it got pretty well coated and most of the big clumps of cheese got broken up.

The wet ingredients: only heavy cream, which is mixed well enough so that all of the flour mixture is incorporated, but isn’t overmixed.

The original recipe called for using a half cup measure for giant biscuits, or a 1/4 cup measure for smaller ones but as I attempted to use a 1/4 cup and was winding up with huge biscuits even then, I downgraded to a couple of tablespoons. These got sprinkled with paprika before going in the oven.

The biscuits spread out into little mounds. The cheese was present, but they didn’t have an overly cheesy flavor, nor was the paprika very distinct. All of the flavors kind of melded together for a delicious addition to a pot luck brunch!

Cheddar Paprika Drop Biscuits (from Joy the Baker, adapted from Martha Stewart)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon paprika, plus more for dusting
• 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter, cold, cut into pieces
• 6 ounces cheddar, finely grated (about 1 cup)
• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, sugar and paprika.
3. Using a pastry cutter, fork or the end of a wire whisk, cut the butter into the flour mixture until it resembles course meal with a few larger clumps remaining. Stir in the cheese with a fork.   
4. Add the cream and stir until the dough just comes together. The dough will be sticky; don’t over mix.
5. Scoop 1–2 tablespoons of dough about 1 1/2-inches apart of the prepared baking sheet. Lightly dust with paprika.
6. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Cool biscuits on a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature.

When I make dinner, I’m not big on main dish/side dish combos, especially when I’m cooking on a weekday. It’s just so much easier when everything is in one dish and you can get your veggies and your main course at the same time. It also easier to save for leftovers for the next day, which is a prerequisite for most of the meals I make. I’ve always associated macaroni and cheese with a side dish, but when it was requested that I make macaroni and cheese I figured, why couldn’t it be dinner? Add in some extras like prosciutto, tomatoes and a pepper, and it becomes a main course.

I looked a bunch of mac and cheese recipes in preparation for making this, and the following recipe is based on an amalgamation of those, somewhere between the fancy-cheese, many ingredient recipes and the super simple ones.

It starts out by basically creating a bechamel sauce for the base. The butter is melted, a bit of flour added for thickening, and the milk (preferably at least room temperature) is poured in slowly while whisking constantly to prevent curdling. This is cooked down until it thickens… most recipes don’t say how much, but it should be about the consistency of heavy cream.

When it’s thickened the sauce is removed from the head and the shredded cheese is added, which melts pretty rapidly and forms a loose sauce. You want the sauce to be not too thick so that your finished product doesn’t turn out too dry. You can use pretty much any combination of cheese that you want (sharp cheddar is always a favorite, though), and I just eyeballed it as to what would be the proper amount. After the sauce is ready, the cooked macaroni is added.

Prosciutto and jalapeno chopped and at the ready to be added to the mixture before place in the baking dish. Not pictured here are the diced tomatoes, which should be drained well before added so as not to thin out the sauce too much.

Into a 3-quart baking pan…

And covered with about a cup of panko bread crumbs (so much better than regular bread crumbs because of their crunchiness), some extra shredded cheese, and some ground black pepper.

Baked until the top becomes browned and the sauce is bubbling. Definitely a success! The prosciutto, jalapeno and tomato chunks blended in so well that almost every bite included some of each. I might bump up the jalapeno if I made this again (I like a kick, and one jalapeno wasn’t really cutting it for this huge dish), but otherwise I was extremely pleased.

Macaroni and Cheese with Prosciutto, Tomatoes and Jalapeno

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons butter, plus more for the dish
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk, lukewarm
• 12 oz Extra Sharp Cheddar, shredded
• 5 oz Monterey Jack, shredded, some reserved for sprinkling on top
• 1 lb macaroni noodles, cooked
• 1 jalapeno, diced
• 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained well
• 4 oz prosciutto, chopped
• Dash of cayenne pepper, nutmeg, salt and ground black pepper
• 1 cup panko bread crumbs

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and butter a 3-quart baking dish.
2. Melt the butter over medium heat until it turns foamy. Add the flour and whisk to combine well.
3. Slowly add milk while constantly whisking to prevent curdling.
4. Bring the mixture to a simmer and let cook until the mixture thickens to the consistency of heavy cream.
5. Remove the mixture from the heat and stir in the shredded cheese. Set aside to let the cheese melt completely; it should form a loose sauce. Stir in a few spices like cayenne pepper and nutmeg.
6. Fold in the cooked macaroni and stir to coat well, then add the prosciutto, pepper and tomatoes, mixing well to incorporate.
7. Pour into the baking dish and spread out evenly. Cover the top evenly with panko bread crumbs, the reserved shredded cheese and some fresh ground black pepper.
8. Bake about 30 minutes, until it is browned and bubbling.