If you’re not already utilizing eggs as your weeknight savior, I highly recommend it. Whether it’s something more elaborate or just a fried egg over toast or rice, it’s a quick cooking, nutritious, and cheap meal. And delicious. No virtuous weeknight meal is realistic if it’s not also delicious.

A true weeknight dinner recipe can be hard to come by. These recipes in magazines are usually, for starters, nowhere near 20 minutes to make once you factor in prep time. And when you’ve gone from work to yoga and come home already ravenous, but still need to do laundry, that’s the window we’re talking about. Weeknight recipes also usually involve things that, while easy to cook, have to be bought that day or the day before – aka, meat and/or fish. Not always doable. And they often involve things that I’m not sure how other people are getting fresh – like shrimp. If I see another weeknight pasta dish with shrimp, I might just give up altogether. That’s when you know to reach for an egg.

I call this a frittata but I’m sure there are other things you could call it – a spanish tortilla, maybe even an omelet. What’s great about this is how versatile it is (hence the kitchen sink). I started with a recipe I had seen for a frittata with caramelized onions, threw in some kale, and then decided to throw in the leftover cooked veggies from my summer veggie stir fry. What resulted was a beautiful meal in under 20 minutes. Really. I wouldn’t lie about a weeknight dinner recipe.

Here’s to Mondays!

Kitchen Sink Frittata
one yellow onion
a handful of kale, swiss chard, or spinach
any other veggies you might have – summer squash, cherry tomatoes
6 eggs

Throw a couple tablespoons of olive oil in a fry pan (a skillet with straight sides). Thinly slice onion and sautee over medium heat until onions start to caramelize and turn brown, about ten minutes. Add chopped kale and sautee for another 5 minutes.

Throw in any other cooked veggies you might have on hand (if raw, throw in with the kale). Add salt and pepper generously (you’ll be adding 6 eggs to this). While veggies cook, beat 6 eggs in a bowl. When veggies are almost cooked, pour egg mixture into the pan and turn heat to low. Fire up the broiler (yep, the broiler!).

Watch your frittata as it slowly cooks from the bottom up, taking care not to burn the bottom. Don’t touch or mix it. When the eggs seem cooked everywhere except for the top layer (you can get a sense of this by tilting the pan and seeing how runny it is on top), throw it in the broiler. Bake in the broiler for about 5 minutes until the top is cooked and getting golden brown. Keep an eye on it! Take out, let cool a little, then slice. Goes great with a no-fuss salad of arugula or spring mix.

A recent Bon Appetit article I read referenced the simple theory I’ve heard many a time when it comes to nutrition: try to put every color on your plate. Testing out a new San Francisco farmers’ market in mid-summer, this was a pretty easy challenge to accept.

After grabbing first and asking questions later at the Civic Center farmers market, where I finally found great cheap local produce, I found this summer veggie stir fry recipe from the article to be pretty well aligned with what I had bought. The recipe is super flexible – you just need any veggies on hand, a good solid grain, and herbs to make a quick sauce. I had a wild rice medley from Trader Joe’s, a mix of zuchinni, squash, cherry tomatoes, and japanese eggplant, and a handful of parsley and basil. The sauce was great – a light, vinegary twist on pesto that was really nice drizzled over the final product.

For the veggies, I’d recommend doing the eggplant separately so you don’t end up overcooking everything else trying to get it soft – I always have too much optimism on eggplant’s cooking time. Deglazing the pan afterward with some extra vinegar (or white wine would be great) went a long way too. I’m sure the BA recommendation of using cooked then toasted farro would be great – this is a more realistic weeknight version.

With the leftovers I made a simple carrot ginger juice. My roommate heard that ingesting enough carrots gives your a skin a tan-like, if not slightly orange, glow – just the kind of urban legend us freckly folk will always try at least once. In a foggy San Francisco summer, you’ve got to drink your sunshine. We’ll see how both theories work out…

Summer Vegetable Stir-Fry
Adapted from Bon Appetit

3 cups mixed herbs (basil, mint, cilantro, tarragon, celery leaves)
1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions
1 half-inch piece of ginger, sliced
1 garlic clove
7 Tbsp veggie oil (I used olive)
2 Tbsp rice vinegar
2 Tbsp sesame seeds
Salt & Freshly Ground Pepper
2 cups cooked & cooled brown or wild rice (like Trader Joe’s wild rice medley)
4 cups chopped mixed summer vegetables (bell peppers, zuchinni, chiles, eggplant, summer squash, carrots, celery, radishes, cherry tomatoes)

Combine 2 cups herbs, 1/4 cup scallions, ginger, and garlic in a food processor. Add 4 Tbsp oil, all the vinegar, and 1/4 cup water and process until saucey. Transfer to a bowl and stir in sesame seeds. Season to taste with salt and pepper. (Can be made ahead)

Heat 2 Tbsp oil over medium-high heat. Add vegetables, season with salt and pepper, and stir-fry until brightly colored and crisp-tender. Add remaining herbs and toss to combine. Divide vegetables over rice and drizzle with herb sauce.