Six months ago, almost to the day, I had my first encounter with mini frittatas. Since then, they’ve become a regular in my kitchen, both as a great way to use up ingredients sitting in my fridge and as a healthy, simple meal.

This was going to be a Mini Fiddlehead Frittata recipe, except I thought to taste the fiddleheads after blanching them and before making the frittatas, and I realized that, it turns out I hate fiddleheads (good to know, right?). So the background ingredients (shallots and cheese) became the backbone of this recipe.

And, like many unexpected twists and turns in my kitchen, I ended up liking these a lot! More importantly, this recipe falls into the category of “recipes I can make anytime because I have all the ingredients all the time” — and who doesn’t love a recipe that doesn’t even require a trip to the grocery store?

So sit back, have a few of these for breakfast or as a light dinner, and I’ll be back in a couple of days with something much less virtuous…

Mini Shallot Frittatas

INGREDIENTS:
4 whole eggs
4 egg whites
1 tbsp olive oil
8 large shallots, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp coarse sea salt
1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. In a medium sized saute pan, heat olive oil, garlic and shallots until fragrant and translucent.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs until foamy and approximately doubled in size.
4. Using butter or cooking spray, grease a muffin tin generously. Divide shallot mixture into eight muffin molds. Fill to 3/4 full.  Sprinkle the parmesan cheese over the shallots in equal portions.  Pour egg mixture over the shallots so that each cup is nearly full.
5. Bake for 25 minutes, or until eggs are set and slightly browned on the tops.

Makes eight mini frittatas.

I know I have been way too focused on desserts lately, but here is the problem. There are so many yummy fruits that are in season now, and I’m trying to post recipes before they all become unavailable again! That means that recipes involving blueberries, figs, sour cherries, and rhubarb get priority, and a lot of those just happen to be dessert recipes. It also means that this raspberry and fig concoction also gets priority, and that, for those of you on summer diets, maybe you should just avoid this blog for a while.

No, no. Please don’t avoid this blog, I promise to post something healthy fairly soon.

(Also, I know you are thinking, Katy, what kind of strange seasonal variation gives marshmallow caramel bars a priority? Ok, those were just because I was quite proud of them, I wanted to show them off!)

But back to this frozen yogurt, which is actually rather healthy itself — I even ate it for breakfast one day. As a kid, my fiance used to eat cookies and cream ice cream for breakfast every single day (his mother was nicer than mine, apparently), and I felt a little bit of solidarity with his childhood self when I spooned out a few scoops of this at 8 am.

And it really doesn’t get any fresher than this. My fig obsession is causing me to throw them into just about everything lately, and this was a great combo. On a side note, I think this would make a great sorbet too, if that’s your preference — you could use this recipe and just replace the pears and blood oranges with raspberries and fresh figs!

Raspberry-Fig Frozen Yogurt

INGREDIENTS:
1 pint raspberries (i.e., 2 1/2 pints, if that’s how they’re sold near you)
4 fresh figs, stems removed
2 6-ounce containers of vanilla yogurt
2 5.3-ounce containers of lowfat (2% or 5%) greek yogurt
1/2 cup sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Place the raspberries, figs and sugar in a food processor and puree until smooth. Add yogurt and pulse until mixed evenly.

Churn in an ice cream maker for about 40 minutes, then freeze for 2-3 hours for the best consistency. Scoop, and serve.

Makes about 1.5 or 2 pints of frozen yogurt.

Let’s recap. On Thursday, I posted a recipe for homemade marshmallows. Those marshmallows, I hinted, were not just measly little hot-chocolate marshmallows. No, my marshmallows are part of something bigger.

Today, meet something bigger. A.K.A. ‘Marshmallow Caramel Bars.’ Perhaps I should have called them ‘Chocolate-Covered Marshmallow Caramel Shortbread Bars from scratch,’ but that is quite a mouthful and, after making these, my mouth was already quite full.

And let’s face it: there is something really yummy about multi-layer bars. They pretty much beg for the kid in you to lump all of your favorite things into one recipe, which, I readily admit, is exactly what I did.

But also, I think it’s a little bit fascinating how many different treats you can get out of a few ingredients: flour, sugar, butter, water. Together, they make the crust. Take away the flour, and you get a basic caramel recipe. Add a little gelatin, and you get the marshmallow layer. The chocolate, of course, is a whole different story, but I was struck, while making these, with the fact that the same ingredients made up the backbone of each layer, in totally different ways.

I will say that these bars took quite a bit of work, as baking from scratch often does. Can you really fault a recipe for the extra time and effort that it takes to, say, bake a cake from scratch as opposed to from a box? No. These take a comparable amount of time, and give you a comparable level of satisfaction (dare I say, smugness?) afterwards. (If you want to be a poophead and shorten the time this recipe takes, use melted store-bought caramels instead of the homemade caramel layer.)

But these were really yummy, despite the work. The middle hardens to make a layer of crispy caramel, which is just awesome with the soft marshmallow and rich chocolate. I may, despite the fact that I used literally every single one of my (numerous) mixing bowls to make this recipe, despite the fact that I had to do two and a half loads of dishes before everything was finally clean, despite the fact that I tortured myself with the time it took to wait for the chocolate and marshmallow layers to set, I might even make these again. What can I say? They were really good.

Last, but certainly not least, the winners of The Man Who Ate the World by Jay Rayner are the following comments (randomly selected using this website):

• Comment #6, Joanna
• Comment #32, Avis
• Comment #44, Vicki

I’ll be emailing you all later for your addresses! And everyone else, you guys wrote about so many amazing meals, I wanted to try all of them (especially the ‘perfect meal’ of the author himself)! And if you didn’t win, don’t worry, there are other great giveaways coming up!

Marshmallow Caramel Bars

INGREDIENTS
For the shortbread crust:
1 stick butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cups all-purpose flour
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp milk or cream

For the caramel layer:
1/3 cup white sugar
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp dark corn syrup
1/3 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the marshmallow layer:
1 Recipe Homemade Marshmallows (follow the directions below)

For the chocolate ganache:
1 cup chocolate chips
1/4 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS
For the crust:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, and flour until evenly crumbly. Add the egg and milk, mix to form a dough. Press into a buttered 9″ by 9″ or a 10″ by 10″ baking pan (see note, below). Bake for 20 minutes and set aside to cool in the pans.

For the caramel layer:
In a 2 quart saucepan, combine all the ingredients for the caramel layer. Bring to a boil, stir until the sugar dissolves, and then stop stirring. Continue to boil until a candy thermometer reads 230 degrees. Remove from heat and pour over the baked crust. Set aside the caramel layer to cool.

For the marshmallow layer:
Follow the directions in the homemade marshmallow recipe, except instead of pouring the marshmallow batter into a prepared container, pour it on top of the cooled caramel layer, and spread it out evenly. Allow to set in the refrigerator until marshmallows are much less sticky, about 2 hours.

For the chocolate layer:
Melt chocolate and cream together in the microwave for about 20 seconds, and then stir. If the chocolate is not fully melted, heat for another ten seconds, and stir again. Repeat until you have a smooth, chocolate ganache.

Pour the ganache over the marshmallow layer on the bars, and allow to set in the refrigerator for another hour or two (I know, it’s torture).

Once the chocolate has set, cut the bars using a large, very sharp knife. The caramel hardens quite a bit but can still be cut, just apply pressure. Serve!

Note: The recipe I made created enough for a 6″ by 10″ baking pan, and also a 6″ circular pan. A 9″ by 9″ or a 10″ by 10″ pan would hold the same amount of dough, the only difference will be how tall your bars are (bigger pan, shorter bars).

Here’s the deal with these. Yes, this is a really good recipe for marshmallows. Yes, I’ve made it twice and I consider it pretty much foolproof (although the first time, I managed to melt a portion of my cheapo candy thermometer). But this isn’t just a marshmallow recipe. These marshmallows, in addition to being delightful on their own, are part of *another* upcoming recipe. So, if you’re not into eating plain marshmallows, check back on Monday morning for another marshmallow-tastic suggestion.

Before making these, I had only eaten homemade marshmallows to cap off an amazing lunch at Jean Georges. In fact, soon after that when I announced to a colleague that I was a great cook (modesty? me? they don’t mix), he immediately shot back with, “well, can you make marshmallows?”

I have no good guess as to why that was his challenge, except for the hunch that perhaps he too had eaten at Jean Georges recently.

So marshmallows went onto my list. And, in a twist of fate, in Molly from Orangette’s column in Bon Appetit a month or two ago, she focused on marshmallows.  I love her column, and it often convinces me to try recipes I would otherwise leave on my “to cook” list, so I went for it. I looked at a bunch of recipes, including this, this, and this, and eventually went for my own compilation.

And they were great, and not super difficult, once I got over my candy-thermometer fear.  The second time I made them, I let the sugar get a little too hot, but they still turned out ok.  That being said, the syrup heats up fast once you hit 180 degrees or so, so keep an eye on it!  But definitely give these a try — especially if you have a camping trip coming up!

Homemade Marshmallows

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup white sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp corn syrup (light or dark works fine)
2/3 cup of water
2 packets of unflavored gelatin (about 2 tbsp)
1 egg white
Powdered sugar, if desired

DIRECTIONS:
In a small saute pan, heat sugar, vanilla, corn syrup and 1/3 cup of water on high heat. Stir until sugar is dissolved, then stop stirring. Heat the mixture until it reaches 240 degrees using a candy thermometer, about 8 minutes.

While the mixture is heating, dissolve the gelatin into the remaining 1/3 cup of water. Also, in a large mixing bowl, whip the egg white to soft peaks.

Once the mixture has reached 240 degrees, pour it into the gelatin and water (you can do this in a medium-sized, heatproof bowl) and stir to combine. Allow to cool for about 3-4 minutes, and then pour the gelatin/sugar mixture in a slow stream into the whipped egg white, whipping constantly to incorporate. (This is pretty much impossible to do by hand, you need a hand mixer or a stand mixer, because the gelatin will start to set and get really stiff and difficult to whip).

Whip the mixture until stiff peaks form. Pour into a prepared tray lined with parchment paper or powdered sugar, and refrigerate for about 2 hours. Remove from the fridge and cut the marshmallows into squares (or other shapes). Roll them in powdered sugar, if desired, and serve!

Makes about 20 marshmallows.

I’m excited to write this post, because I have two really fun things to announce. The first is, I read a good book. The second is, you win a copy of it! I have three hardcover copies of The Man Who Ate The World, by Jay Rayner, for you guys to win!

A month or two ago, I was contacted to review a new book that was coming out in July, about a British restaurant critic’s global search for the perfect meal, across the top restaurants on nearly every continent (Australia got a bit shifted, and sadly, Antarctica was never even considered). Supposedly, it was in the style of Ruth Reichl, whose books I adore. So I happily agreed.

In the first chapter, Rayner begs his readers not to read his book while hungry. I was reading the first chapter on the elliptical trainer, before dinner, but I was enjoying it too much to actually take his advice and put it away until sometime when I was full enough to pick it back up.

It’s a really fun book. My favorite chapter, not surprisingly, is the one on New York, as he explores some restaurants I’ve been to, and some I’ve only dreamed about going to (and inspired me to knock one more off my list this weekend, in fact)! And aside from a few moments of being horrified by the prices of many of these meals, it was completely enjoyable to read.

This isn’t a cookbook, it doesn’t have recipes, but you wouldn’t be a foodie if you didn’t come away from reading it craving langoustines, truffles and foie gras, which, apparently, are on the menu at every Michelin-starred restaurant on earth. And Rayner gives some very nice mentions to food bloggers (unlike, apparently, Mario Batali, who hates us*). When he’s planning his trip to Japan, he consults Pim Techamuanvivit of Chez Pim to find out where to eat. When he’s finished with what has to be one of the more impressive restaurant-crawls ever heard of (Per Se, Jean Georges, Bouley, Eleven Madison Park, and WD-50 in one night), he posts pictures of all the dishes to a food discussion website the next morning (you can read his dining companion’s account of the night here). And more importantly, he’s willing to give copies of his book to one very lucky food blogger and three of her readers (that’s you!).

So, to win, here’s what I want you to do. Leave a comment on this post and tell me what your most perfect meal has ever been — whether in a top-rated restaurant, home-cooked, or just good food with good company (my personal favorite). You can enter anytime between now and Sunday, July 13th at 8 pm Eastern time, and I’ll announce three randomly-selected winners the following morning!

And, for those of you who are excited about the book and don’t win it here, you can purchase your very own copy by clicking here!

Good luck, everyone (any happy belated Fourth of July)!

* I have been meaning to write something about this for a while, and Rayner opened the door for me because he talks about it in his book. But really, I think Mario Batali has nothing against actual food/recipe bloggers. He just doesn’t like bloggers who say mean things about his restaurants. I love Babbo, even if the only reservations I ever get are at 5:30 or 10:30 pm. Don’t hate me, Mario!