Basic Frittata with Leeks and Bacon

I have a very specific memory from my mom's kitchen.  (Okay, okay, I have HUNDREDS of specific memories from my mom's kitchen... this is one of them.)  I was in my late teens or early twenties, raiding my parent's refrigerator.  It must have been just after Christmas because there was leftover shrimp from our annual Christmas shrimp cocktail. I was enamored with the idea of omelettes at the time. My mother was sitting at the kitchen table paying bills while I whipped up an omelette heavy with dill and chopped shrimp. Mom hated it when we made a mess in the kitchen, but she was also inordinately proud that all of her children were able and willing cooks..

I remember thinking that maybe, when I was rich, I would settle down and open up a little breakfast joint that served only omelettes. (Did I say "enamored"? More like "obsessed".) The problem with this little fantasy is that omelettes are kind of a pain in the ass.

Now, more than a decade later, I find myself slightly less intrigued, but still very much "in like" with the idea of the frittata. Not surprisingly, it took a recipe from Joe's cookbook to show me how freaking easy they can be. As long as you have an oven-proof skillet, that is.

Everything you've ever loved in an omelette can be produced in frittata form. Case in point, I recently succumbed to a teensy bout of nostalgia and made one with shrimp and dill.

It was quite nice.

Puffy Oven Pancake

I love breakfast. Any time of day or night, I will be overjoyed to be eating some form of breakfast foodstuffs.

(This does not include Grape Nuts. If I wanted a bowl full of rocks, I'd go get a... wait a minute. I simply do not ever want to eat a bowl full of rocks... period.)

One other breakfast item that I have some trouble with is pancakes. I love them, I really do, but I always feel like a friggin' heifer whenever I finish a plate full of the doughy gut bombs. Sure, I've tried making silver dollar pancakes. Unfortunately, as my food gets smaller and cuter, my willpower drops exponentially.

It should come as no surprise that when I saw Ina Garten on tv making these fluffy alternatives, I just had to try them out. (Literally, when the episode was over I went straight to the kitchen and made one for myself.)

But before I jump right into this, there is one small thing I'd like to share. I keep, in my refrigerator, a zesting lemon.

This is why I almost never use any other citrus zest in a recipe if I can get away with it. Once I have suitably used up the majority of the zest on this bad boy, I'll most likely scour the internet for an easy lemon pudding or something.

Also, I do not currently have a microplane (shame, shame shame.) Any time anything needs to be grated, I just mince the hell out of it. What I do have, luckily, is a really nice old-school vegetable peeler.

This is why I almost never measure the amount of zest that I use. One strip generally suits my needs just fine.

Lastly, television cooking personalities always say to just use the zest (in this case, the yellow) and not the pith (the white). Well, lookie here...

And I wasn't even trying. My vegetable peeler zested the hell out of that lemon. I could have done it with my friggin' eyes closed.

And so ends of my "crap-I-don't-have-a-microplane-screw-it-I'm-not-running-to-the-store-for-that" zesting tutorial for the day.

Convenience Store Breakfast Sandwich

So, the title of this post is somewhat misleading. This post is not about one of those frozen, pre-made breakfast sandwiches that are nestled next to the frozen pizzas and burritos in the gas station freezer section.

I admit that I am a breakfast sandwich snob. A connoisseur of sorts. I have searched far and wide through many a freezer section for a microwave-friendly quick sandwich treat... with disastrous results. I have not found a single edible sandwich... and there is an incredibly small list of foods that I will not eat.

Part of the problem is this. In the time that it takes you to microwave one of those hideous concoctions, I can toast bread, fry an egg, and clean up any mess that I made. A basic egg on toast is somewhere near thirty-thousand times better than those gummy, hot on the outside, frozen on the inside monstrosities. (Yes, these numbers are based on incredibly complex calculations that I just made up.)

What this post is actually about is the very questionable act of shopping at a small convenience store while hungry.  And I don't mean "a small bag of chips will satisfy me" kind of hungry.  I mean the "holy crap, I've been awake for about 5 hours and still have not eaten a single bite of solid food" kind of hungry.

There is a little country convenience store less than two tenths of a mile from my house. This place is fantastic... for what it is.  This is not a farmer's market.  In fact, the only "fresh" items it has are the occasional small tubs of local seafood (clams, wrinkles, etc.) The #1 reason I go to this store is on the oft-encountered occasion where I have made a pot of coffee and realize that I have somewhere between 1 and 2 teaspoons of milk or half-and-half left in the refrigerator.

It is also fantastic as it contains a single wall full of the most eclectic and useless pantry items I have ever seen. Yes, there may be a single can of tuna, but it is sitting next to several tins of kippered herring. Yes, there are canned tomatoes... however, they are not whole, diced or sauced.  They are "stewed and sliced" tomatoes.  In a can. W.T.F.