What’s in the Fridge Frittata

December settles in. The cold has held below twenty for eight straight days now and the snow on the ground is the dry, squeaky, deep-winter snow that means business. The cattle are tucked in around the windbreak and feeding from the rack twice a day. The new calf is doing fine. He has caught up to the November calves in size — almost — and he sleeps pressed against his mother's flank under the south wall of the calf shed where the wind cannot reach.

I drove to Bozeman Saturday for Tara's baby shower. Mom rode with me. The quilt was in the back seat in a box, wrapped in tissue paper. Mom held it on her lap for the last forty minutes of the drive without saying anything because the quilt was the speech she was going to give and she did not want to spoil it by talking. Twenty-six women at the shower, plus Cole, plus Cole's father-in-law, plus me — three men in a house full of women, which is fine, none of us minded — and Mom presented the quilt to Tara at the right moment, and Tara cried, and Cole cried, and Mom told the story of which patches came from where, and the room went quiet, and the baby — who Tara now told us would be named Maggie, after her grandmother, Margaret Mae — would sleep under three generations of fabric. Mom did not cry. Mom does not cry in public. But on the drive home she said quietly, looking out the passenger window at the dark, I am going to be a grandmother. I said, Yeah, Mom. You are. She said, I never thought we would get to grandmother. She did not finish the thought. She did not need to.

Patrick had hung in well at home for the day. He had refused to come — a five-hour day with a long car ride is too much for him in December — and Tom Whelan had come over to sit with him for the afternoon. When Mom and I got back at six in the evening, Tom was at the kitchen table with Patrick playing cribbage. They had played four games. Patrick had won three. Tom said, He cheats. I said, He has always cheated. Patrick smiled. He had smiled enough times in one day that I noticed and remembered and that is what December is for now — counting smiles.

I shod a horse in Roundup Tuesday and one in Big Timber Thursday. The Big Timber drive was hard — sixty miles each way on roads that had not been plowed since the night before — and the truck did the work, and I did the work, and I came home tired and sat by the woodstove for an hour before dinner. The work I do not love in December is the work, period. The work in December is harder than the work in July and the rewards are the same — the horses go home sound, the money goes in the bank, the day ends. I do not complain. I am noting.

Cooked beef pot pie Sunday. Same idea as the chicken pot pie but with chuck I had braised Saturday — three pounds, slow, with onions and carrots and rosemary — picked apart, mixed with the gravy, topped with a single sheet of biscuit dough Mom had taught me to make in 2018 and that I have made every year since with diminishing self-criticism. The biscuit topping rises high and gold and the filling underneath is dark and rich and the whole thing eats like a meal you would happily eat every Sunday for the rest of your life, which is, more or less, what I plan to do. Patrick had two helpings. Mom had one and a half. I had two. The crust was right. The filling was right. The Sunday was right.

Saturday cookout was eight men. Marcus made ninety-one days. Thirteen weeks. The number is approaching the one Marcus has been afraid of, which is one hundred days, which is the number Gary called me about in October 2017 when I had hit it the first time before relapsing. Marcus knows the number. He does not say it. He counts in weeks, the way I taught him to count, the way Gary taught me. The hundred is coming. I am not bringing it up. The cooking is the cooking. The fire is the fire. The men are around it. The hundred will come or it will not come and Marcus will continue or he will not continue and either way we will be here Saturday next week with another fire. The fire helps. The pie helps. The quilt helps Mom. We are in December. We are still here.

The pot pie was Sunday. Monday morning the woodstove was going again and there were three eggs left and half an onion and some cheese and I was not going to town. This is the frittata Mom taught me alongside the biscuit dough — same era, same kitchen, same logic: use what you have, waste nothing, feed whoever is at the table. Patrick was at the table. That was enough reason to make it right.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

8 large eggs
1/4 cup whole milk
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil or butter
1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 cup vegetables of choice (diced bell pepper, leftover roasted potatoes, spinach, or whatever needs using)
1/2 cup cooked meat of choice, optional (crumbled sausage, diced ham, leftover pulled pork)
3/4 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, Gruyere, or whatever is in the drawer)
Fresh herbs or hot sauce for serving, optional

Instructions

Heat the oven. Preheat your oven to 375°F. If you have a cast iron skillet, this is the time for it.
Whisk the eggs. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, salt, and pepper until the yolks and whites are fully combined and the mixture looks uniform. Set aside.
Saute the vegetables. Heat the oil or butter in a 10-inch oven-safe skillet over medium heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and just starting to turn golden, about 5 to 6 minutes. Add any other raw vegetables and cook another 2 to 3 minutes until tender. If using pre-cooked meat or leftovers, stir them in now just to warm through.
Add the eggs. Spread the vegetables and meat evenly across the bottom of the skillet, then pour the egg mixture over the top. Do not stir. Let it cook undisturbed on the stovetop for 3 to 4 minutes, until the edges begin to set and pull away slightly from the pan.
Add the cheese. Scatter the shredded cheese evenly over the top of the eggs.
Finish in the oven. Transfer the skillet to the preheated oven and bake for 10 to 13 minutes, until the center is just set and no longer jiggles when you gently shake the pan. The top should be lightly golden.
Rest and serve. Let the frittata rest in the pan for 5 minutes before slicing into wedges. Serve directly from the skillet with hot sauce or fresh herbs if you like. It holds well at room temperature for an hour and reheats without complaint.

Nutrition (per serving)

What’s in the Fridge Frittata — The Morning After a Sunday That Got Everything Right