Grilled Summer Frittata

Who doesn’t love a frittata?  They are easy to make and can be adapted to use just about anything in the garden.  And now my husband loves them, as well, because they can also be grilled!

We had a little family get-together recently — out in the garden, of course — so we wanted to take advantage of all of the produce we had on hand.  We found we had a nice combination from the local Farmers Market – and the garden – to make a great meal.  We made up a few cold salads to round out the menu.  The rest of the vegetables, along with a few sausages for the meat eaters, went on the fire.

The above photo shows potatoes and red peppers cooking in the cast iron skillet that would cook the frittata, an herbed potato dish cooking in an aluminum foil packet and a marinated Swiss chard vegetable medley (which included onion, more zucchini, mushrooms and soy sauce) in the grill basket.

For the frittata, I had a few potatoes, a nice bunch of asparagus, a red onion, a few small red peppers (from a volunteer plant from last year’s garden) and, of course, zucchini!

Grilled Frittata

Ingredients

Frittatas are ideal for grilling in the summer!  They may be eaten hot, right off the grill, or allowed to cool to room temperature before serving.  They can be made substantial enough for a main dish offering — especially with the addition of potatoes — or they can serve as a very tasty side dish to accompany grilled meat or fish.

I think we will be eating lots of these, once I get my own chickens!

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I think it is important to eat as many of the foods you grow in your garden while sitting outside, in your garden.  Meals like this one are celebrations of the bounty we have received!  I think it akin to enjoying a glass of wine under a grape arbor, which always seems to transfer positive energies, of thankfulness, back into the vines, themselves.

I have a lemon tree on the far end of my garden.  It has suffered quite a number of traumas over the years — one particularly awful assault was from an over-zealous gardening service armed with chainsaws!  But I refused to give up on this beloved, old friend. Unfortunately, this little tree seemed to have grown SAD over the years.  Many of the lemons were odd, some years barely there, at all, and many of the branches died or grew very large, ugly thorns.

I read something that reminded me that trees were living things and, as a result, reacted as living things.  I went out and visited my little lemon tree, and realized it was standing all alone in a much-neglected area of the garden.  Days, sometimes weeks, would pass without a single person laying eyes on that tree. While this part of the yard once was alive with flowering vines, the only visitor to this area was now the family dog, trained to make his morning deposits there, out of the way of the backyard pool.

Determined to make amends, we began making regular visits to that tree.  We began to water it on a regular schedule; we pulled off the dead fruit and raked up the rotting lemons that had fallen to the ground below.  We located the compost bin in this area, so that daily visits would be made there.  And we replanted the flowering honeysuckle vine to welcome the hummingbirds back to the company of this beloved lemon tree.

One day, I walked into my bedroom and saw this: the cats were lined up at the window, peering out to the little lemon tree in the garden. They were watching, intently, as a bird flew in and out of the tree, busily building a nest!