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Muffin Tin Frittatas
Moira D. (original recipe)
I must apologize to Louisiana for leaving this post until the last minute. Real life caught
up with me and I had to shift my priorities. But here I am now!
I once planned a road trip to New Orleans and I'm sure I'd have lots of fun stories to share
if it hadn't fallen through. I didn't really plan a lot of details so maybe it would be a fun
exercise to research where I might go and what I might do.
So, it's a 20-hour drive. I've driven as many as 12 hours in one day but I was younger then.
For simplicity let's say it's two full days of driving and we arrive in New Orleans around 7 or 8pm,
exhausted. All we really need tonight is somewhere to eat and somewhere to stay. I've barely
traveled since Air BnB was a thing so I am more familiar with hotels and regular bed and breakfasts.
According to the Internet, the Garden District and Uptown are the best places to stay. I like the
sound of the Garden District so I found a cute B&B with a great rating and a two-night minimum.
Perfect! We get checked in and drop off our stuff, freshen up, and then it's off for dinner.
Tonight we just want something easy. There is a Mexican restaurant a few blocks away that's
open late. I've checked out the menu and it's vegetarian-friendly.
After a complimentary breakfast let's start our day with a visit to the nearby Lafayette
Cemetery, a historic cemetery that inspired New Orleans resident Anne Rice. I have some business
in the Central Business District so let's head there for lunch. I like the look of a "tropical
cafe" with plenty of vegan offerings. I won't lie, I'm tempted to visit the Audubon Aquarium
(are aquariums ethical? Is Audubon canceled?) as long as we're nearby, because I love aquariums
and I figure it would be a good way to learn about Louisiana's aquatic biomes. However, we only
have finite time here and we're in a city famous for its culture. I say we pencil it in but
definitely cut from the itinerary if we are running behind or just want to take it slower.
Let's spend the afternoon/early evening exploring the French Quarter, capped off with dinner
at a po boy
restaurant renowned for its tasty-sounding vegetarian offerings. After dinner, maybe catch some
live music before heading back to the B&B.
It's time to call it a day. We have another twenty hours of driving ahead of us because I
need to be back in town to make a court date.
Frankly this recipe has me kind of scared. I'm not afraid of the flavors, just the final
consistency and removing the frittatas from the pan. I'm not sure whether it would work with
real eggs and I am going to use a vegan egg substitute that has been sitting in my fridge for
a week. We shall see!
Ingredients
- 1/3 cu. frozen Spinach, thawed
- 3 oz. Seasoned baked tofu, diced
Preparation
Grease a 6-muffin muffin tin with oil. I am using a toaster oven otherwise you will need to double the recipe
for a standard 12-muffin muffin tin.
Squeeze water out of the spinach (it's sounds like tedium but it's kind of satisfying) and mix with tofu
and nutritional yeast. Pepper to taste, then divide into muffin tin. Pour in Just Egg, leaving 1/4" to rise.
Bake for 20 minutes at 300 degrees,
then get frustrated with your progress (we have playoff college hockey to watch!) and increase temperature
to 350 and bake another 5 minutes. Satisfied with your results, remove from oven and allow to cool for
10 minutes while your team falls two goals behind ONLY TO COME FROM BEHIND AND WIN!
Meanwhile, chop tomato, preferably a sexy heirloom tomato,
season with salt, and serve over frittatas. Frittatas.
Discussion
It worked! And it's good! In retrospect this is probably the simplest recipe I've attempted yet,
and I simplified it even further. Usually I replace onion with shallot but instead of a substitution
I completely omitted it because I really don't like onions
in my omelets and shallots are too similar for this application for my liking.
This leaves just four ingredients besides oil, salt, and pepper, and I'm not sure if nutritional
yeast even counts as an ingredient. It shouldn't work but it does.
Tofu is an imperfect feta substitute but I guess egg flavor and tomatoes are simply a winning
combo. I suppose the secret to success is the muffin-tin technique, way more fun than a boring
omelet. I doubted it but now I see.
Cooking is a funny thing. I gravitate toward the stupidly simple and the stupidly complex.
My schedule lightens up a little in April but March was busy and evidently I went from preparing
my posts two weeks ahead of time to scrambling (frittataing) the night before. But this is what
deadlines are for!
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Ohio
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Louisiana
An equivalent to a football field of wetlands converts into open water
every 100 minutes, since the 1930s an area roughly the size of Delaware
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