Recipe boxes. Who remembers them? My mother’s favorite recipes are easily identified, even today. As she aged into her nineties, she became less capable of cooking, but the browned recipe cards with worn and tattered edges remained in her recipe boxes, which I am delighted to now own. She frequently penciled in changes to the recipe, depending on what she might have tried or intended to try. She also used the power of free speech and opinion writing rather liberally on her recipe cards, scribbling comments like “Delish!” on the edge. Or a directive such as “I urge you to try this!” might be scrawled next to the addition of wheat germ when recipes were headed in my direction. The source of the recipe, when known, was always carefully noted as well. She was a librarian, after all.
I tend to be a bit, eh… perhaps lazy is the right word in regards to maintaining her practices. It’s not unusual for me to make major changes to a recipe, then neglect to note them. My husband predictably asks if I wrote down the modifications, with the likely answer of “well, not yet.” Implying that I will do it, ha-ha. Inevitably I will ask him if he remembers what I did when I attempt to make the dish again…
I am delighted to tell you that I have turned over a new leaf! Or recipe card! Or something like that. In other words, I am trying to be more systematic about noting the original source of a recipe, along with how I have altered it. Sometimes I don’t alter the original at all, but enjoy it enough to use as a template to create a dish that is similar, yet unique in its own right. The recipe I’m presenting today came about in this fashion.
I have no idea what I might have been searching for when I stumbled onto a strawberry almond breakfast frittata recipe that sounded like a low carb sort of thing I might actually want to eat. I am most decidedly not a savory breakfast sort and I once managed to eat low carb for almost six hours…
Anyway, I found this recipe on the blog https://www.asaucykitchen.com/sweet-frittata/. Turns out the blogger further credited Eating and Living Gluten Free magazine, from which she adapted the recipe. Nor is my alteration the only one you might locate using an online search. This crediting of sources is much more complicated than I ever might have expected, and I wonder if my mother would have continued the practice under these conditions… But I do think she would have enjoyed this particular recipe, even though low carb would have been a foreign concept to her. She did live on an egg farm!
I encourage you to check out the original recipe, because it’s really quite tasty and I still make it, though not as often as my own adaptation. Why? Because blueberries and maple syrup is a match made in heaven, pecans are my favorite toasted nuts and goat cheese provides a tart richness that perfectly counters the small hit of sweetness. Perhaps I could even “urge you” to take a deep low carb plunge and try them both.
Blueberry Pecan Frittata
Ingredients
- 6 eggs
- ¼ cup pecan meal
- 3 tablespoons maple syrup divided
- ½ teaspoon each vanilla extract and maple flavoring or 1 tsp. vanilla
- Dash of salt
- 1- tablespoon butter
- Sprinkle of cinnamon
- 1/3- cup goat cheese crumbles
- 1/3- cup chopped toasted pecans divided
- 2 cups blueberries divided
- 1 teaspoon poppy seeds
Instructions
- Whisk the eggs, pecan meal, 2 tablespoons maple syrup, extracts and salt together until fluffy. Melt the butter in a 9-inch cast iron skillet over medium heat. Pour in the egg mixture and cook, not stirring, until partially set, about 5 minutes. Sprinkle with cinnamon, the goat cheese crumbles, ¼ cup of the pecans, and ½ cup blueberries. Pop under the broiler for about 5 additional minutes, or until eggs and set and top begins to brown. Remove from the broiler, and scatter the remaining pecans and berries over the top. Drizzle with remaining tablespoon of maple syrup, and sprinkle with poppy seeds.
- Makes 4 servings
