Spinach Cheddar Bake

Mother's Day. Ninth. Dustin attempted: a frittata. I repeat: a frittata. The man who started with scrambled puddle eggs nine years ago attempted a frittata. He watched a four-minute YouTube video, cracked six eggs (three of them without shell fragments — progress), added cheese and vegetables and poured it into a skillet and put it in the oven and produced something that was, by any reasonable definition, a frittata. It was slightly overcooked. The center was slightly runny. But it was a frittata. Dustin Turner made a frittata. The Post-it said, "Year nine. The frittata era begins." I believe him. I believe in the frittata era. I believe that a man who takes nine years to evolve from scrambled eggs to frittata is a man who never stops trying, and the trying is the love.

Chicken fried steak at Mama's. Ninth year. Mama is sixty. She's been retired for nine months and she looks — different. Not younger exactly, but lighter. The weight of twenty-three years of retail has lifted, and underneath is a woman who naps in the afternoon and watches her stories and tends a vegetable garden (a real garden, in Roy's backyard, with tomatoes and peppers and squash) and holds her grandchildren with hands that are finally still.

She said something today that I'll carry forever. She said, "I'm glad I quit." She said, "I should have quit five years ago." She said, "But I couldn't because the money." She said, "The money kept me there and the money kept us alive and the money was never enough but it was something." She said, "You made it so I could quit. Your food bank salary. The insurance. The steady. You made it so I didn't have to be the only one standing." And I thought about fourteen-year-old me, making dinner while Mama worked doubles, and twenty-eight-year-old me, earning a salary that let Mama retire. The chain doesn't just go forward. The chain goes back. The chain loops. The daughter feeds the mother who fed the daughter. The circle.

Mama had her chicken fried steak at her place, the way we always do, but I came home and made this Spinach Cheddar Bake for myself — because after what she said today, I needed something warm and layered and quietly nourishing, something that holds together the way she held us together all those years. Eggs and cheese and greens baked into something steady: it felt like the right thing to make when your heart is too full for anything complicated. Dustin was in his frittata era and I was in mine.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 40 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 packages (10 oz each) frozen chopped spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
6 large eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese, divided
1/2 cup cottage cheese
1/4 cup finely diced yellow onion
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon butter, for greasing the dish

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Butter a 9x13-inch baking dish or a deep 9-inch square dish generously and set aside.
Drain the spinach. Thaw the spinach completely, then wrap it in a clean kitchen towel and squeeze out as much liquid as possible. You want it as dry as you can get it — this keeps the bake from going watery.
Mix the base. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and milk until smooth. Stir in the cottage cheese, 1 1/2 cups of the shredded cheddar, onion, garlic, salt, pepper, and nutmeg until combined.
Fold in spinach. Add the squeezed spinach to the egg mixture and fold it in evenly, breaking up any clumps so the spinach is distributed throughout.
Fill the dish. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish and spread it into an even layer. Scatter the remaining 1/2 cup of cheddar over the top.
Bake. Place in the preheated oven and bake uncovered for 35 to 40 minutes, until the center is set and no longer jiggles when you gently shake the dish. The top should be golden and the edges slightly pulling away from the sides.
Rest and serve. Let the bake rest for 5 minutes before slicing. Serve warm, cut into squares.

Nutrition (per serving)

Spinach Cheddar Bake — The Dish That Tastes Like Coming Full Circle