Frittata of Champions

After the not-very-nourishing sugar high of yesterday's coffee cake, I craved a more substantial follow-up. This morning the neighborhood children woke us up by rapping sharply on the door and demanding we come out and play. George went out but for some reason my mind flew instantly to Frittata-ville. I have never made a frittata, mostly because I don't like omelettes, or scrambled eggs (unless in sandwiches), or souffles, or anything involving a large mass of undifferentiated cooked eggs.

But I imagined a sort of quiche involving one of my very favorite breakfasts, hash browns. Luckily at my local store you can buy pre-grated hash browns with pretty much nothing else in them, and you can save a lot of time and effort just frying those up. So I looked for hash brown frittatas on the Internet and found this recipe which had been tried and approved of by about 600 people, as long as a bunch of changes were made.

I jumped on the bandwagon and made a bunch of changes too, and I have to say I was very very pleased with the result (George wanted it to have more cheese, but he always feels that way about everything). I now feel like the offspring of Popeye and Superman, ready to leap off tall buildings, analyze Gubaidulina's 1971 Concordanza, and read up on music printing in 16th century Venice.  Tally-ho!

Sarah's Hash Brown Frittata of Champions

vegetable oil
1 20-ounce bag of pre-grated hash browns, or a similar weight in russet potatoes, shredded in a food processor (make sure you squeeze out any liquid)
1 medium onion, chopped
garlic powder or several cloves fresh crushed/minced garlic
salt & pepper
6 eggs
several handfuls of spinach, washed
1/2 Cup of cheddar cheese

1 10-inch cast iron or oven-proof deep fry pan
1 other pan too

1. Preheat oven to 400ºF.
2. Heat oil in cast iron fry pan. On medium heat, fry the potatoes until both sides are brown and crispy. Remove from heat. Grind on pepper and salt liberally.
3. Meanwhile, sauté onions in another pan until sweet and tender. Layer evenly on top of potato "crust."
4. Chop spinach. Add on top of onions.
5. Beat eggs. Add bunches of garlic powder (or garlic).
6. Pour eggs evenly over potato-onion-spinach cake. 
7. Stick whole fry pan in the oven for 10 minutes.
8. Meanwhile, grate cheddar. Do dishes.
9. Remove pan from oven. Sprinkle cheese over the top evenly. Return to oven for 5 minutes.
10. Set out drinks and plates.
11. Remove frittata from oven. Divide into six wedges. Serve hot.

Now march out there and conquer your day!