(gentle music) - I'm Karen Schneider and I've been cooking and writing about food for a very long time.

I like to keep things simple and real, but most of all I just want to share what I cook.

So today we're going to make a frittata because I need to clean out my refrigerator.

I have a lot of little odds and ends in there that I want to use up.

And I'm going to put them together in a pan with some eggs and cheese and meld them together and it's gonna be delicious.

You're going to want two cups in total of meat and vegetables, and we're going to use six or seven large eggs.

I'm going to put some half and half in here.

You can use cream, milk, whatever you have on hand, about a quarter of a cup.

Whisk these up.

And then I'm going to preheat my cast iron skillet.

So I'm gonna put this between medium and medium low.

So we're going to turn the oven on to 400 degrees to preheat it.

I'm going to add a little olive oil to the pan and a little butter.

About, oh, between one and two tablespoons of each.

So I'm going to use not all of these potatoes, but about three quarters of what's in the bowl.

I'm gonna add these onions.

I just added the mushrooms.

Now the bacon was pre cooked.

And if you see that anything is sticking you can always add a little bit more olive oil because when you're all done, you want the wedges of frittata to come out of the pan easily.

I'm going to add some spinach.

It's always nice to put greens in things.

I try to do that whenever I can to add some extra nutrition and color.

And as you can see, I'm just cutting a spinach up with some kitchen sheers.

And now we're gonna give everything a quick stir.

And this is the time when you can add any herbs you like.

Now I'm going to put the cheese in.

Today we're using the Winter Hill Farm cheese from Freeport.

Use about a cup of cheese.

And now we're ready to add the eggs.

Make sure that the eggs have room to get around all those goodies that are in there.

So I have the rack sat in the middle.

In it goes, I'm going to check it in about 10 minutes.

So I put the timer on for about 12 minutes and I'm going to go ahead and check it.

A lot of times, I do all this by smell and it smells like it's getting done but I can still see, you want to do this carefully so you don't burn yourself, but I just like go like this.

And you know, it looks pretty solid.

So I'm gonna take it out of the oven.

The oven goes off and the frittata is going to cool for between five and 10 minutes before you cut into it, that way at firms it up and it will continue cooking in the pan.

And this, it takes quite a while to cool down.

So if you're busy with guests or getting your salad together, don't worry about serving it immediately.

It will stay warm in the pan for a good 20 minutes, if not longer.

I really love to cook for people and I hope that you'll take this meal and other ideas and cook and share with someone you love.

(gentle music)