Vegetable leek frittata crumble

When you have been cooking a while, gotten a lot of practice especially during this pandemic, we think we are proper chefs and imagine we can just whip something up mighty delicious. Also, sometimes it’s fun to venture a bit away from your standard recipe book and create something different. Today I created something for dinner that’s not really in a category if any dish, so we’ll call it a "frittata crumble".

Leek is what’s on the main stage today. When you buy leek, it’s usually in a bunch of 3 stalks. They are quite a sharp, strong tasting vegetable. They are packed with vitamin K, A, C, B6, iron, and full of fibre. When you have a bunch of these, it’s easy to make what I made and have a great dinner. 30-40 minutes is all you need, with half of which being idle time, completely doable.

What you need:

- Leeks (some recipes say you should use the white and inner pieces. Sure they are more tender. But I also like the beautiful dark green leafy bit because of all the texture – all we need to do is to cook it down a bit first, not a big deal)

- 1 tomato

- 1 head of broccoli

- 1 bell pepper yellow or orange (I like the color contrast, so either of those are very pretty)

- 6 eggs

-  ½ cup bread crumbs

-  ½ cup of cubed cheddar or mozzarella

- 1 tsp Salt, pepper, 1tsp of thyme

- 1 tbsp of butter

Recipe:

- Wash the leek leaves each individually, as sometimes there’s often dirty stuck in between and you don’t want to miss those spots. Chop them into ½ inch strips

- Cook leek with butter, thyme in med high heat for about 5-8 min until tender. This is how we get the leek leaves to become soft and delicious. And oh, yes butter helps!

- Cube bell pepper and tomato, add into the pan to cook with the leeks for the last 2 minutes.

- Break the broccoli into small florets, blanch and pour into glass bake ware (mine is about 8x12)

- Pour the cooked leek mixture into the glass ware lay it flat on top of broccoli

- Scramble eggs and pour it evenly between all the vegetables, it’s not enough to cover all the veggies but will be about half way.

- Throw cubed cheese around on top, add salt and pepper all over

- Throw on the breadcrumbs on top, 400F for 20 min, broil for the last 2 min for crispiness

There you have it: a dish half frittata, half crumble, but 100% yum!

Notes and verdict:

- I didn’t want to use more eggs as to cover all the vegetables. Since eggs have quite a bit of cholesterol so I opted to not over do it. Also I wasn’t going for a super eggy breakfast item. The 6 eggs were just fine as they acted binding agent for all the veggie to cook together.

- I especially love, LOVED the way all the vegetables came together. The colors were so vibrant and beautiful, there’s a bit of sourness of tomato, a bit of fresh broccoli, and some soft sweet bell peppers all intertwined in the sharp and spicy leeks, the cheeses melted between the gaps, and bread crumbs were just adding a bit of crunch.

- This dish was a big hit, I will definitely be recreating it.