Lentil Frittata

I needed to use up some more red onions and I came across this nice recipe for a Lentil Frittata in a book I have called Fat-Free Vegetarian, edited by Anne Sheasby, which I can't find on Amazon so I can't provide a link. I bought it at a discount store so maybe it's one of those obscure cookbooks. Amazon lists some others by Anne Sheasby though and I'll definitely have a look, the recipes in the book I have are interesting.

The frittata turned out tasty but wasn't much of a frittata since the use of 8 eggs required in the original recipe freaked me out. I just couldn't get myself to do it so I used 4. It was still good and I'm sure I'll be making variations of this in the future. I served it with a salad of avocado and pink grapefruit, idea courtesy of the same book. I say idea and not recipe because the book had a more complete version of a salad, with a variety of ingredients and even a dressing, whereas I just cubed half an avocado and half a grapefruit and sprinkled it with lime juice. A really great combination, by the way!

Such a healthy recipe had to enetered into Sweetnicks' ARF 5-A-Day Tuesday - check out this week's other recipes entered!

Lentil Frittata

(serves 8)

75g green lentils (I used canned)

225g small broccoli florets

2 red onions, halved and thinly sliced

1 tbsp olive oil

8 eggs (I used 4)

3 tbsp water

3 tbsp chopped mixed fresh herbs, such as oregano, parsley, basil, chives (I used dried)

175g cherry tomatoes, halved

salt and pepper

Place the olive oil and red onion slices in a shallow dish and place in a cold (unheated) oven. Set the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas mark 6 and cook for 25 minutes.

In the meantime, prepare the lentils and broccoli. Since I used canned lentils I skipped the whole beginning of boiling them until tender - I just put them in a pan with some oil and when they started sizzling added the broccoli and cooked until the broccoli was bright green.

In a bowl, whisk the eggs, water (oops, I just realised I forgot this!), a pinch of salt, plenty of pepper and the herbs. Set aside.

Stir the lentils and broccoli into the onions, add the cherry tomatoes, stir to combine. Pour the egg mixture evenmy over the vegetables. Reduce the oven temperature to 190°C/375°F/ Gas mark 5 and return the dish to the oven for another 10 minutes. Then push the mixture into the center of the dish so that the raw egg mixture flows to the edges. Bake another 15 minutes or until just set.

Enjoy!