Meatless Monday: Heirloom Tomato & Blue Cheese Frittata

A Meatless Monday post? This is not entirely in my wheelhouse. As any of my regular readers now, I'm a pretty hardcore carnivore, and the boy is even worse. We love meat in all forms, I could go on and on about the braised veal tongue we had in Montreal, but I won't, at least not today.

While on our honeymoon we ate a ton, most of it cooked by us as we were staying on an island in a lake in NH and frankly going out to eat was just too much work. We had no TV and a natural topic of conversation for us is food. As we talked about food and how we eat, we acknowledged that we don't really eat enough vegetables. During this conversation I decided that I wanted to get on board with Meatless Mondays. It is a way to get us eating more vegetables and also a way to challenge me and force me to be creative with vegetables. And the most important thing of all, it's yet another small way we can help contribute to the health of our planet.

For my very first Meatless Monday post I decided to go with a new version of something I'm very comfortable with, a frittata Is it a bit of a cop out, perhaps, but it's a baby step and I hope the more I do this, the more and more creative I'll get and the more fun I'll have with it. Besides that I truly believe a goodfrittata is something every home cook should be able to make, it's a quick and easy way to use whatever ingredients you have on hand to pull together a breakfast, lunch or dinner. This specific incarnation came about as a result of the meal we had in Montreal, with the braised veal tongue I mentioned earlier. Prior to the tongue, we had an absolutely delicious tomato salad with blue cheese and red onion and parsley and just a bit of oil and vinegar. It was very similar to the simple salads I make almost every day at home, but something about this one was just more special, more delicious, more something. The boy loved it and I decided for my carnivores inaugural meatless meal I'd go with something I knew he'd like.

Outstanding Meal at Pete's Greens

Over a week ago my new husband and I were fortunate enough to attend a meal thrown by Outstanding in the Field at Pete's Greens in Craftsbury, VT. While I have spent alot of time in VT due to my folks having a condo at Killington and even lived in Shelburne for a year when I was 5, I've never taken much interest in the food there. We generally cook at the house when we are up skiing, and aside from VT cheddar and Maple Syrup I admit to ignorance when it comes to VT grown and produced products. The boy, being Canadian, also knew next to nothing about food from VT except for our favorite Long Trail beer. As we headed out on our honeymoon 12 days before the dinner, I even noted that I thought there was a chance the dinner would be a beer dinner based on the large number of microbreweries in VT and having had no knowledge of VT based vineyards. All that being said we knew we were in for a great experience and meal and our lack of knowledge just increased our anticpation.

Our host farmer for the dinner was Pete Johnson of Pete's Greens. Pete's Greens is an organic farm located in Craftsbury, VT. Our chef was Eric Warnstedt from Hen of the Wood in Waterbury, VT. Upon first pulling into Pete's Greens we are greeted by the most whimsical sight a small shedlike building whose roof was covered by plants a border of green with the center part covered in this lovely deep purple leafy plants. We later found out the purple plants were amaranth and the plant covered roof topped their farm stand. A shed chock full of Pete's veggies and pastured raised chicken and eggs, as well as tons of other locavore products. From locally made jams and honeys to locally grown flour, some even from Quebec, which even though it's a different country is only 30 miles away from Pete's. It pained me to not be able to buy some of the gorgeous tomatoes and baby greens, but as we were traveling and literally had no more room in the car or cooler I settled for a Pear Honey jam from Elmore Roots, some local honey and some VT grown white flour. The farmstand is completely on the honor system,w here you write down what you've taken and make your own change. Coming from a big city, it was so refreshing to be somewhere where you could trust people like that and made the whole thing even more special, if that was possible.