Arlene’s Recipes for an Easy Brunch: Apple Cake and Egg Frittata!

Well hello, and welcome to At Home today, we’re so glad when you drop by. Today we’re gonna talk about frittatas. Does anybody in the studio have an idea of what it means? No, no. Maybe a yes over here. No, no. Oh no. Gee, okay it’s education time. Listen up everybody, frittata, an Italian omelet that usually has the ingredients mixed with the eggs rather than being folded inside as with a French omelet. It can be flipped or the top can be finished under a broiling unit. An omelet is cooked quickly under moderately high heat and after folding has a flat sided, half oval shape. You know what that… We know we’re talking about here, okay? A frittata is firmer because it’s cooked very slowly over low heat and round because you never fold it. Today we’re doing a frittata. The thing I like most about frittatas and Paul and I eat them a lot, is that it can be a breakfast idea, it can be a brunch idea, you could serve it for lunch with a salad. you could serve it for a quick dinner when you come in and don’t know what else to make. You always have eggs in the house. Eggs are the basis for a frittata. So we’re gonna do one of those today, and a wonderful buttermilk apple coffee cake. Something that could be used for dinner or it could be used for breakfast. Trying to make it versatility here. We’re always glad when you drop by, we’re so glad that the family is here and I hope you’re having a wonderful day. I hope that you realize God’s presence is very close. In fact, at the mention of the name of Jesus, the scripture says he is right here. He’s right here right now, and he’s here to hear your faintest cry or what you have to say to him today. He never turns a deaf ear. Don’t forget, he’s as close as the mention of his name, he’s right here. Well, we’re glad you’re right here with us today and we’re gonna start it frittata in just a moment. But first here’s today’s At Home Hint, we’ll be right back. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. Never buy frozen foods if there are large ice crystals on the packages. Foods may have been thawed and then re-frozen. If you’ve got a helpful hint you’d like to share with us, we want to hear from you. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well before we get started with the frittata, I wanna bake that… Put that buttermilk apple coffee cake together, and for that we’re using an eight inch, this has a removable bottom, this is a spring form pan, and we’ve greased it really well. It’s important to do that because you wanna be able to get it out. Now you can use just a regular cake pan but it’s just easier to get it out if you use a spring form, okay? And here we have some flour. We’re gonna put that, ’cause we’re gonna combine that with the flour and half a teaspoon of baking soda. Sticking down in there, come on. There we go, and about an eighth of a teaspoon of salt. Okay, and we’re just going to aerate those with the fork just to make sure that they’re combined and we’re gonna set that aside, ’cause that’s gonna come back into use in just a little bit. What I’m gonna talk you through is what we’ve done with apples. We took a one and a half cups of apples, three tablespoons of brown sugar and a table spoon of lemon juice, we put it on and let it cook until it was syrupy, about five minutes. You wanna keep stirring this to make sure that it doesn’t stick and keep your flame not real, real high, but then after that happens you have to take it off and let it completely cool. You don’t wanna do use this when it’s hot that’s why we did it ahead of time so that at this point, we would have it nice and cool which it is. Now, we’re gonna get together now and I’m gonna put some butter. This is… Let’s see how much butter. Couple of tablespoons of butter and some sugar. Make sure I get these right for you. Third of a cup of sugar. Okay? We’re gonna cream that with the mixer because that just makes it easier, it makes it lighter and fluffier and better, and I wanna make sure they incorporate very well. Until it’s nice and creamy, then we’re gonna add just one egg. This is just gonna be adding one egg to this. I like a little portable mixer every once in a while because you don’t have to drag out the big mixer if you have to put it away every time you use it. So we add the egg. You can see it’s a nice rich batter’s forming Scrape down your sides, make sure it’s getting combined very well. Okay, now we’re gonna add our extracts and they would be vanilla, which would be one teaspoon, and you can just eyeball this, you don’t have to like exact, and some of our favorites, we also add some almond extract which to me picks up any cake mix you make, anything you make, add some almond and this is less. This would be half of the vanilla which would be about a half a teaspoon. Remember this is potent and it’s an extract. It’s a condensed of the smell and the fragrance so you wanna… Don’t overhand it, okay? Okay, here we go. Now we’re gonna add the flour, a little bit at a time, like that, and combine it. Then we’re gonna take some buttermilk. It’s really only a fourth of a cup but I have much more than I need here, but I’m just gonna start putting in a little bit at a time and that’s… It’s amazing, we were talking about the effects buttermilk has on things that you use, the best biscuits in town you can make with buttermilk, you know that. Good cooks out there know that, and pancakes. Man, the buttermilk pancakes are the best. Again you want… Make sure you scrape it down. There we go, and we’re gonna add some more flour, and we’ll add some more of our fourth cup total buttermilk Now if you wanna measure that out, of course you do that then you’ll know you have a proper amount. I’m eyeballing it ’cause I kinda know, okay? And, again we wanna blend it after each addition to incorporate it very, very well. This is a nice… It’s so nice to have something like this. This only bakes 25 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven. It’s nice to have this in the morning, like maybe on a Sunday morning, mostly Saturday morning. Probably better than Sunday, ’cause we’re always in a rush to get to church but it’s nice to have this on a special morning when you’re preparing that special breakfast for your family. Why not just say, okay this is the day we’re having the buttermilk apple coffee cake and then just show them. They’ll love you mother. They will love it, and it’s not hard. It’s put together easily. You could do your apples the night before, just bring them out, They have the refrigerator over the night. Bring them out, pop them in the microwave just so they get room temperature if you don’t wanna do a cold and really you’d have it no time flat. You say do I have to use it eight inch pan? Well you can see this doesn’t make a whole lot of batter so if you make it nine inch, it would really be thin. I don’t think that would be as good so I would stick with an eight inch pan but if you don’t have a spring form, that’s okay too. All you wanna do is make sure that you grease it well so that when’s time to take it out, you can get it out, okay? Let’s see. We’ll give it another quick one right around the bend here, like that. There we go, and I think we’re there. All right. Now, this beautiful and creamy. Very nice, very smooth. Now we’re gonna place this into our prepared pan and we’re gonna spoon it in and spread it evenly in the bottom of it. It doesn’t look like much, but you know with that baking soda and the buttermilk has helped that along too. It’ll be fine ’cause we’re gonna put our apples right on top of this and make sure you scrape that bowl nice and clean. Okay, now scrape this all off. I like to do stuff like this, special stuff for breakfast. ’cause sometimes breakfast can be boring. Sometimes those same old, same old. Well Paul, what do you want? “I guess eggs.” Oh, “I guess this.” It’s just nice to do something different for a change. So we spread this. Just like this all over the bottom of our pan, take it to the edge. ‘Cause remember now your apples are gonna go right on top of this. There we go, nice and even. Then, we’re just gonna spoon these. There’ll be a little bit of a syrup in with them but that just goes on top. If you have time you wanna make a fancy design, you go for it. If not just spoon them out like I am, just make sure that every bite will have a piece of apple, okay? Make sure your oven is preheated to 350 degrees, really important like I always tell you, you wanna make sure that that’s the temperature that you’re working with, and we’re still not done after we get all the apples on, one more step. I wonder what would go good with apples and something to taste almondy. You got it, we’re using almonds. We’re just gonna sprinkle them right over the top like that. If you like more put more, if you like few put fewer. That just gives it another crunchiness to it which is really nice, and this is going into the oven at 354, about 25 minutes or until it starts to pull away from the edge of the pan, okay? We’re gonna take a break while I’m doing this, and when we come back, we’re gonna start the frittata. Well our buttermilk apple coffee cake is in the oven. Smells already beginning and it’s wonderful. We’re gonna get the coffee going, but first we have to get ready for the main course of our breakfast, lunch or dinner whichever you want to use this with. This is a great center piece for either one of those meals. I have my good old fashion. God bless this iron skillet, and the meat accompaniment to this because I don’t put meat in my frittata, some people do. They’ll put sausage in, they’ll put bits of ham or bacon, whatever. I don’t like that, but we’re gonna use some Canadian bacon. Now Paul likes this sliced thick like almost into a steak size, and that’s when it’s really… Almost gives a feeling of a chunk of ham, and if you’re gonna make biscuits or something that would be great to do. Also, Canadian bacon is one of the leanest of all the meats. There’s like… Look at this, do you see fat on this at all? It’s very, very lean, and it’s amazing at how tasty this is and you don’t wanna overcrowd the skillet which I’ve probably already done so we’re gonna just brown these off. That’s all we’re gonna do with this. So this could cook slowly while we do the frittata. In a large skillet that is coated with a non-stick surface. You have just… You know what, I’ve told you before, if you don’t have one, invest the money and get one, ’cause you really need it. We have some oil and some butter. We use both because if you use just butter, it would smoke and burn. So if you put the oil with it, it tempers it, and you get to cook it longer ’cause this is gonna cook a little while. Now, and you also want to make sure that this skillet has a handle that can go into the oven because we’re gonna put it under the broiler and some handles will melt on site ’cause you’re 550 degrees usually. So you just wanna be sure that it’s a good handle and it’s a good skillet. and tell that, when you’re looking for what you’re gonna do, tell that to the people that you’re gonna buy it from. Okay, first of all we’re gonna add some onion. We’re gonna add some onion to our frittata, we’re gonna add some green pepper. Now, I like this because if I have leftover potatoes, like fried potatoes in the fridge I’ll chop them up and put them. I might even bake one little potato in the microwave bring it out, chop it up and put it in this. This is kind of a leftover thing. You got a little handful of broccoli or cauliflower or zucchini, this is the time. With all the stuff coming in from the gardens, this is a perfect place to enjoy it, and I like it with all these different flavors too, and then of course we have to have our ever present garlic. So we have a little garlic action going there. Okay, and I’m gonna let those just sweat. I don’t want them getting real brown and… Nothing like that, we don’t want that, okay? So they’re just gonna sweat. Now what I’m doing here is getting my eggs ready because I’m gonna use five, four or five depending on the size. These eggs look a little small so I added an extra one. So now I have five eggs in the bowl and we have to flavor these eggs, but the thing I like about a frittata and this is my own addition, I’ve never read this but this is what I do ’cause I find that this works. I better turn that bad boy down just the nip. There we go. Don’t want ’em getting all brown there. Okay, in fact I’ll put the few little mushrooms in there let them get cooking too while we’re doing this. Okay, now I got the eggs going. First of all, we’re gonna salt and pepper them. Cayenne pepper, fresh ground pepper. However you want. It’s at your pleasure, do it. Now we’re gonna add some salt. Remember eggs need some salt, and this is what I do, I add a couple of tablespoons of flour. It’s really different, I know. To me that gives it some sustenance, it gives it a body. If you’re watching your carbs, don’t use the flour. This is a very good dinner if you’re watching your carbs, by the way. Okay so I just basically put this in. Sometimes, like when we’re here working, we’ve got a lot of shows to do. I’ll say, hey we’re gonna have lunch or what? Inevitably, we have eggs, and I know when they say, “Do we have eggs?” Or if I say, do we have eggs? We’re all going for a frittata, and we enjoy it so much. The girls seem to enjoy it and I… Of course I… To me it’s fine when people are looking forward to what you’re cooking and they really wanna eat it. That’s half the fun for me, the joy. Okay, I think we better take a quick look at what’s going on over there with our Canadian bacon. Again we’re just turning it and flipping it, turning it and flipping it. This you do at the very last minute. Very, very last minute, okay? Now I’m gonna add a couple of table spoons of Parmesan cheese, that goes in there too. Any other kind of a seasoning you’d like to use, this is the time to do it, this is the time. Now what I’m gonna do here, I beat my eggs. Okay, I’m gonna pour them right over the top of the veggies. Now this is the kind of a utensil that I like for this. You wanna get the vegetables pretty much to the center, and then you’re gonna pour your eggs and this egg mixture all over making sure that it covers everything. Just like that. Okay? Easy to do. Now here’s the key. You’re gonna wanna start pushing back. Push back. Hey, be quiet over here. Trying to let me know they need some attention. Just keep pushing back. That’s why the non-stick is the best, ’cause if there’s anything worse than runny eggs… I don’t know what anything’s worse than runny eggs when it comes to eggs. But you wanna keep cooking them and pushing them back because that’s gonna set them up just like that. Go all around the edge of the pan, you’re pushing ’em back. Let me see if I can do this better with this little pointed one. Here we go. Just keep pushing ’em back until you realize you can feel that the bottom of it’s setting up. See here how it’s starting to set around the edge. That’s when you know the eggs are setting but you wanna tilt your pan to let the egg on the surface that is not cooking as quickly, you just wanna keep pushing it. Now, what we’re gonna do with this, we’re gonna let this cook a little longer. I’m gonna some… Chop some basil on top, I’m gonna put some shredded cheese on it, put it onto the broiler. Put it in the broiler about five minutes. You gotta watch it ’cause it’ll puff up and it’ll get golden then we’re gonna do some tomato action on top. We come back, we’re gonna be in the dining room and you’re gonna see what a real frittata from this kitchen looks like. We’ll be right back. Now be sure that you write for those recipes just as you’ve seen either by snail mail with a self addressed stamp business size envelope or through our website at www.ctvn.org. and that is with a subscription with a credit card, you have to have a credit card in order to do that but we want you to get all the recipes, okay? For the whole month in fact, not just today’s but the whole month’s worth. Well, I think the table looks beautiful. You can see here is our beautiful buttermilk apple coffee cake. When that comes out, when it’s done baking, all you do is make a little glaze. The recipe’s included, three little ingredients and then just drizzle it back and forth. This is good either warm or cold, put a little cherry on top just to give it some color. Now, if you had some of that left over, I’d pop a piece of that in the microwave just for 10 seconds to take the dryness off of it or drizzle a little butter on or whatever. Oh boy. In front of our coffee cake, is our frittata, and what you can see there is we have, again, we covered it with the cheese, put it under the broiler till the cheese started bubbling and getting crusty around the edge, brought it out, put it on our serving plate, and then covered it with sliced fresh tomatoes, and some delicious, fresh basal on the top. That would serve probably four huge appetites, probably six nice appetites and a taste for everybody if you’re gonna do it for a brunch with other things. Now beside that, you can see that we have some Canadian bacon that we decided we would put with that ’cause that’s just a nice… Completes the meal a lot. It’s not a heavy meat, it’s just nice and light. We just brown, there’s a little bit of butter, that’s all and now you say the breads for that. If I was serving it for breakfast, it would be the English muffin and it would be the bagel that was toasted with some cream cheese or marmalade or strawberry jams or whatever you might have. If you’re doing it for lunch, why not just add a toss salad with it. Some kind of a toss salad and get some dinner rolls and just split them like we’ve done there beside the toss salad and we put a little bit of onion, I’m sorry, garlic and parsley flakes. There’s a spice that McCormick makes and just put that on after your butter them and let them just toast in the bottom of that skillet for a few minutes. We’ve added iced tea if it’s a lunch or a dinner and coffee any other way Any way at all, it’s good and we’re so glad to see you. Be sure to join us the next time because it just wouldn’t be the same without you.

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