To Eat Dinner @ Home: Caramelized Onion & Feta Frittata, Herb Biscuits, and a Salad

Weeknight meal: frittata, salad & biscuits. Also, lunch for the next day.

I love frittata! Because it's eggs, obviously. But also because it's so easy. Most importantly (?), it's an amazing word to pronounce. I do it like this in my head: "frrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeee- TA TA!" For most accurate depiction, please roll the R, hold the E's and make the T's really tingly, like your tongue is tap dancing. ANYWAY. Normally, I would be content eating the frittata (tonight's version was caramelized onion & feta) with a simple side salad. But since I've promised myself to stop fearing flour, I attempted herb yogurt biscuits. (Recipes below.)

One of the ideas behind the blog is to remember MEALS. Like, the whole thing. Not dishes. But the main, the side, the wine (if I'm drinking it that night). Because lots of blogs have components of meals but then you've got to figure out what goes with it. So here's all of it! One dinner when you've got an hour to spare.

Here's how it went.

Tonight's meal was largely courtesy of The Kitchn, one of my favorite cooking & eating blogs. They have an excellent guide on how to make a great frittata. It even helps you determine components! For tonight, I chose: caramelized onions & feta. And then of course the biscuits.

BTW: a frittata is basically baked scrambled eggs in the shape of a round pan with a bunch of stuff in it, almost always cheese + your choice of veggies or meats. ANYWAY. I love it cause it takes 30ish minutes from chopping to eating. AND, it makes great leftovers that can be eaten warm or cold. I prefer cold. (I'm having mine for lunch today.)

A couple things to think about:

• Fillings are fun! But, don't put too many in. I did that once and it didn't allow for the egg to shine. It just tasted like a bunch of vegetables with weird eggs.
• Fun fact. Bridget, from America's Test Kitchen, claims that eggs are not fully whipped until you've beaten them 60 times! 
• The Kitchn says to use 6-8 eggs; every time I have used 7. Just, FYI.
• ALSO! Eggs, are the only MANDATORY ingredient. How cool? The rest is up to your taste buds & pantry.
• Don't overcook it! That is gross.

Here are all the ingredients:

Garlic Butter (made up in my brains):
1 clove garlic
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
Salt & pepper

Frittata (adapted from The Kitchn):
7 eggs
1 yellow onion
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
canola oil
1/4 cup light brown sugar
3 garlic cloves
1 shallot
1/4 cup crumbled feta

Herb Yogurt Biscuits (from The Kitchn; my notes in red):

2 cups (9 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

1 tablespoon baking powder
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) cold unsalted butter 
1/2 cup whole or low-fat plain Greek yogurt
1/4 cup minced fresh herbs, such as dill and Italian parsley (I used 1/8 cup rosemary)
Cold milk (whole or 2%), as needed (I needed milk)
Good butter and flaky salt, for serving (I made garlic butter. You should do that.)

Salad
Greens
Sunflower seeds
Vinegar: I used Pomegranate Vinegar (what a nice gift from a friend!) You can use balsamic.  

I began by whipping up the garlic butter. That way, I could finish it then let it harden up in the fridge while I made the rest of dinner.

Melt 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter (I did 30 seconds in the microwave). Grate one clove of garlic on a microplane (I love this technique for adding raw garlic to things. Makes it less spicy and overwhelming.) Dump the garlic into the butter bowl. Add salt and pepper. Put it in the fridge until you're ready to eat.

Now, the biscuits! The recipe is copied verbatim from The Kitchn (hence the quotes). I've added a few notes here and there. But the point is: there are some breaks in the recipe that enabled me to simultaneously cook the frittata. So you can follow along and do all the things as I did.

"Preheat the oven to 450°F. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.

(I put the butter in the freezer while I mixed the white stuff + pepper together) In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, and pepper and whisk to incorporate. Cut the butter into razor thin slices; (I was like, I HOPE this is razor thin, but I have no idea.) add to the dry ingredients, tossing to coat with flour, and place the bowl in the freezer for 5 to 10 minutes." (I wish I knew what the variable was here; 5 minutes in baking seems like a long time to me? Does it you?)

During this 10 minutes, I did the following: 

• Chopped the rosemary
• Cleaned some plates (I've been called the Kitchen Monster more than once; I'm trying to reform)
• Sliced the onion for the  frittata

See how I'm doing that? I like that they ended up in strings and not chopped up real small like.

Then, I started the caramelizing. I put my all-clad pan on the stove at medium heat (basically, just choose a heavy bottomed pan; baby got back, or something). I added the 1 tbsp of butter and some canola oil. I put the onions in the pan once the butter and oil started to sizzle a little.  Throughout the next 10ish minutes I would stir the onions around. Once they began browning, I added 1/4 cup of light brown sugar.

Back to the biscuits. (Don't forget about your onions!)

"Gently fold the Greek yogurt and minced herbs into the dry ingredients, stirring until most of the flour is absorbed and the dough forms a shaggy ball. (I found this challenging. I wasn't sure how to fold or stir with chunks of butter. I ended up using my hands, which mostly worked.) If the dough still seems too dry, add milk, a tablespoon at a time, as needed. (I dumped the milk in like one spot; this was dumb. I should have spread it out a bit more.) Turn the dough out onto a floured work surface and knead just until it forms a smooth ball, about 10 to 15 seconds.

Pat the dough into a 1/2-inch thick round. Flour a sharp biscuit or circular cutter and cut out biscuits, as close together as possible. (Do not twist the cutter; press straight down and pull straight up.) Use a bench scraper or spatula to transfer biscuits to the prepared baking sheet, spacing them about 1/2-inch apart.

Bake the biscuits for 12 to 14 minutes, (I probably should have cooked mine for fewer minutes than 12--that usually never happens) rotating halfway through cooking time, until tall and golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes before serving. Top with good-quality butter (or homemade garlic butter!) and a generous sprinkle of flaky salt." TA-DA!

When the biscuits come out, turn the oven down to 400 for the frittata.

While the biscuits were baking, I chopped 3 cloves of garlic and 1 shallot into pretty small pieces.  I took out my non-stick pan, put it over medium heat and put canola oil in it. When heated, I put the garlic and shallots in to sautee. Add lots of salt and pepper!

Crack 7 eggs into a bowl and whip 'em good. I counted roughly 60 and they were nice and fluffy.

When the onions look nice and brown and the garlic & shallots are aromatic, put the onions into the pan with the garlic & shallots . Mix 'em around cause there'll be some real nice juices from the caramelized onions. Add the crumbled feta on top of that. Let it melt some. Add the eggs. Wait 1-2 minutes until the edges are cooked. Throw it in the oven! It will be done in 8-10 minutes (mine was closer to 10). Let it set for 5 minutes in the pan; I put a plate on top of the pan and flipped it over so that I could see the caramelized beauties on top.

The caramelized onions tasted lovely & sweet and contrasted the salty feta nicely.

Right before dinner, throw some greens in a bowl. Top with a smidge of vinegar. Mix with your hand so all leaves are coated. Put some sunflower seeds on top.

EAT ALL THE FOODS.

Overall, it was a satisfying and light feast. The frittata was sweet & salty & fluffy. The biscuits, though a little dry (I'm still learning!), were herby and the garlic butter added a nice savory quality. The salad was simple, but important because it added a nice acidic quality to the palate.