I woke up earlier than usual for a Saturday morning due to the fact I needed to pee.

Instead of returning to bed, I decided to take breakfast duties upon myself (usually my hubs makes pancakes or waffles on weekends – yes, he’s a good one) and change things up a bit today.

I’ve had Pioneer Woman’s Sunday Fritatta recipe pinned in my Pinterest for years and thought today was the day I was finally going to make it. I quickly looked through the recipe and figured although I was missing many of the ingredients and I didn’t have an oven safe skillet – I was still going to make this because I had what I deemed were the essentials, and I was determined to have fritatta for breakfast.

What I didn’t have (and what I did have):

• Enough eggs. The recipe called for 12; (I had 7)
• Cheddar or Monterrey Jack Cheese; (I had mozzarella)
• Spinach or Kale; (I had scallions…at least I had something green)
• Enough jarred roasted red peppers; (I had probably 2 tablespoons’ worth left and they had been in my fridge so long that they almost disintegrated when I tried dicing them, oops)
• An oven safe skillet; (I however had this beautiful Staub pie dish that I had never actually used to make pie with since I still have never baked – dessert that is)

A few changes: I skipped the olives, hot sauce, and butter (I actually love butter but just didn’t think I’d need it here) and used leftover roasted Yukon gold potatoes and sweet potatoes from last night’s dinner.

For the egg mixture I added a splash of milk because that tends to make eggs a little fluffier which is always my preference. I did of course keep the Parmesan cheese suggestion (I am not that crazy).

Also, as usual, instead of following the exact measurements of anything from the recipe (1/4 cup of this or 1/2 cup of that), I just used however much I thought seemed right – this is something you learn with time but it makes life a lot easier and cooking a lot faster!

Since I didn’t have an oven safe skillet, I knew I was going to have to change things up anyway. So I cooked up the onions and scallions and threw in the leftover potatoes and sweet potatoes, and my pathetically small amount of roasted red peppers. As you can see here – they look like tiny specks of red.

Then I oiled up my pie dish, threw in all the cooked stuff, and the egg mixture on top of it. And into the oven it went! (I did follow the recipe’s oven temperature suggestion – 375 degrees – and I always preheat my oven while I’m doing the food prep.)

Because I made it this way instead of the recipe’s way, 12 minutes was not enough time for the fritatta to cook thoroughly. I don’t know exactly how much time it took since I kept adding time in increments of 3-5 minutes, but I would estimate the total time for mine was about 25 minutes. And I’d say it came out pretty perfect.

Note: timing is not always an exact thing for recipes because everyone has different ovens, or if you’re changing amounts and cookware like I did, this all affects cooking time. So similar to amount of ingredients that you can eyeball, timing can also be learned. You just learn to know.

To enjoy, I had a fine slice of my favorite sourdough from Bread Alone with a delicious salmon spread from Esti, a sprinkling of dill, and of course coffee.

The best part about it was that I had a ton of frittata leftover that is going to make Monday and the rest of the work week’s breakfast game so much better than oatmeal!

Moral of the story:

If you see a recipe that looks delicious, don’t let the lack of ingredients or cookware prohibit you from making something. In cooking, (as in life), you get to be creative and find your own way of making it work for you.

P.S. However, word of advice – don’t skip the potatoes or the eggs (eggless frittata? maybe a goal for next time) or the cheese – those really do make the fritatta a fritatta!