Whole Family Cookbook Review & Giveaway (recipe: A-B-C Frittata)

Every so often you meet a person with whom you see eye to eye on many important topics. Thanks to online connections, these encounters happen more and more frequently. Michelle of What’s Cooking with Kids is one of those friends. Even though we have never met, her philosophy and well-researched posts often have me nodding my head in agreement and occasionally giving her a virtual high-five.

Michelle recently penned “The Whole Family Cookbook” and I knew from the onset that this was going to be a resource I could get behind. Without question, Michelle is an expert in her field of teaching children to cook and instilling a healthy food culture in a new generation.

The Whole Family Cookbook lives up to its reputation with the tagline – Celebrating the Goodness of Locally Grown Food. With gorgeous photos and over seventy-five creative recipes, it grabs our attention instantly and practically cajoles us into the kitchen – with kids in tow.

Kids in the kitchen is yet another topic Michelle and I agree on! The first chapter of the book, Raising Young Locavores, dives headfirst into this topic, where Michelle’s passion shines through beautifully. She gives her expert tips on engaging children of all ages in the kitchen – right down to the toddler.

And then there are recipes! Creative, organic, and family-friendly, Michelle’s recipes focus on sustainable ingredients and simple techniques. My favorite section – Mom Approved Treats – has got so many fun treats, we’ll be busy cooking from it for a while!

Handy tips, solid environmental practices and good plain fun is just a sample of what you’ll find in The Whole Family Cookbook.

It’s a cookbook for the modern, eco-conscious family that enjoys the simple pleasures of home cooking.

Recipe: ABC Frittata (Apple, Bacon, Cheddar)

Our boys enjoyed this with whole grain toast; Danny and I preferred ours on a bed of lightly dressed baby arugula. A perfect plate for brunch, lunch or a light dinner.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

  • 2 egg whites
  • 8 whole eggs
  • 1 cup cheddar cheese, grated
  • Salt, to taste
  • 3 slices bacon
  • Ground Pepper, to taste
  • 2 apples, Fuji or Gala
  • 1 Tablespoon butter

method:

Put the rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat oven to 450°F.

Crack the eggs, one at a time, over a small bowl. After checking for stray shells, pour each egg into a medium bowl. To separate the egg whites, crack the egg over an egg separator or someone’s clean hands. Carefully let the egg white slip through the fingers into the bowl, with the yolk remaining. Discard the yolk or save for another recipe. Using a whisk, beat the eggs until the yolks and whites are thoroughly combined.

Grate the cheese. Younger children can help you use a rotary cheese grater (which protects their skin). Older children can use a box grater. Add half of the grated cheese to the egg mixture and stir to combine. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, to your liking.

Cook the strips of bacon. You can fry them in a skillet (watch out! They can splatter.) Or, you can bake them in the oven on a cooling rack over a rimmed baking sheet. We like this method because we don’t have to turn the bacon over and the kids stay safe.

Once the bacon cools, crumble the strips with clean hands. Use a vegetable peeler to peel the apple. If you have an apple corer, you may use it. Or, simply cut up the apple, leaving the core behind. Slice the apple pieces very thinly. As you are cutting, be sure to put the flat side of the apple pieces down, so the chunks don’t wobble on your cutting board.

In a medium cast-iron or nonstick ovenproof skillet, heat the butter over medium heat. Add egg mixture to the skillet. Sprinkle the bacon crumbles evenly over the eggs. Gently arrange the apples on top of the egg mixture, in a circular pattern. Sprinkle with remaining cheese.

Move the skillet from the stovetop to the upper rack of your oven. Bake until frittata is firm in the center and cheese is browned, about 20 minutes. Use a flexible spatula to loosen the frittata from the pan. Carefully slide it onto a cutting board. Allow to cool for a few minutes before slicing into wedges.

Recipe from The Whole Family Cookbook, Used with permission, of course.

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377 Comments

  1. My MOm always hated cooking so my first kitchen memory is trying to make my parents bacon and eggs, by myself, to earn my cooking badge in Brownies.

  2. Blueberry muffins on a Sunday when the hot air balloons were visible from our house.

  3. I wasn’t given the chance to cook as a child. So, my first memory was trying to learn how to cook from my husband many years ago.

  4. well i definitely fall into the category of a modern eco friendly family with no proper cookbook! hah 🙂 hmm, my first memory is probably helping to mix up the egg batter for french toast and sprinkling the powder sugar on.

  5. I remember making pancakes with my mom on Saturday mornings when I was three or four.

  6. I remember helping my grandmother in her kitchen – Christmas cookies, pies. She would spread scraps of pie crust dough with peanut butter and cinnamon sugar, wrap them up, and bake. A little treat for us to have right away.

  7. I have to say making Sugar Cookies with my Mama and sister at Christmas!! We made a MESS and great memories! 🙂

  8. My first memory of going solo is surprising my mom by making cookies when she was out of the house. She came in just after I added the last ingredient in the mixing bowl – without mixing at all. If I remember correctly she actually found a way to salvage the cookies!

  9. I’m sure, like a lot of others, my first cooking memory is baking Christmas cookies with my grandmother. She so gently guided my sister and I, but still allowed us the freedom to cover each other in flour and have contests for the ugliest cookie. I think of her often when I bake with my daughter and hope to create some comforting kitchen memories with her.
    Thanks for the giveaway – the book looks lovely!

  10. Cooking with my grandmother, using her set of child-size biscuit and cake pans, learning a life-long love of cooking!

  11. My first memory is making peanut butter pancakes with my mom and sister out of our Disney cookbook. My mom saved that cookbook, and now I am able to make the same recipes with my kids.

  12. My first memory is of making semolina pudding with my grandma in her kitchen aged about 5. I’d just had to climb on the roof of the garage for chokos for dinner.

  13. I have very vague memories of washing and help peel potatoes…probably from when I was about three years old 🙂

  14. I remember baking cookies with my mom & sister in the kitchen when I was little. I also remember using a Mickey Mouse cookbook that she bought me, and I loved that I could thumb through the pages and pick a recipe, and she would help me cook it. :0) So many wonderful memories cooking with my mama.

  15. I don’t have too many memories of cooking in the kitchen. I do remember that my mom would let us help her in the kitchen when she made cookies.

  16. My first kitchen memory is how my mom would set up a little “picnic” for my sister and I to make lunch special. She would put a table cloth on the kitchen floor and give us a snacky foods like lunchmeat, cheese, and crackers. It was so simple, but so much fun!

  17. I was a latch key kid, and my first cooking memory (other than the Easy Bake) was using the Nancy Drew Cookbook after school to surprise my mom with dinner. I am sure she was thrilled!

  18. I’m not sure which kitchen memory preceded the other, but two of my earliest are making apple pie with my mom (and sneaking a lot of the raw pie crust) & watching my grandma frost her famous molasses cookies at Easter.

  19. I dont know that it is my first memory, but it’s the one that comes to mind first: My mom asked me for the first time to bake a chocolate cake. I had seen her do it a hundred times. We didn’t have the oil that was called for in the recipe, so, just like I’d seen mom do, I melted some shortening. Well, I guess I should have either let the shortening cool some, or mixed the eggs in the batter, but when I added the “oil”, I fried some of the eggwhite! My brother, TO THIS DAY!!, still recalls eating my Chocolate Fried Egg Cake.

  20. My first kitchen memory was watching my mom make home-made pies. She always sang while she worked in the kitchen so it was always a happy place!

  21. I don’t remember what we were making, but I remember standing on a chair in the kitchen with my mom. I can still her our laughter as we were cooking. I remember mixing and helping her cook. I try to include my children when I am in the kitchen as much of what is safe (the mixing and adding before its put in the oven or on the stove) for them to do since they are so small. I hope they have the same memories.

  22. Hmm…my very first kitchen memory…that must’ve been cleaning and cutting long green beans with my gran in her kitchen, when I was about 5 years old.

  23. My first memory of cooking was learning how to use my easy bake oven to make a chocolate cake! I loved that oven!

  24. My very 1st kitchen memory was of my grandma making fried apple pies. They are a family favorite and have been for as long as I remember. I would pretend to help her roll out the dough and she acted like I was a big help! We would both come out of the kitchen covered in flour, laughing the entire time!

  25. The kitchen memory seared into my memory? The completely insane gold brown and red patterned linoleum! I net it still there in my parents’ old house…….

  26. My first memory is of my grandma’ssugar cookies and angel food birthday cakes with money inside!

  27. one of my earliest in-the-kitchen memories has to be watching my mum bake over 7 different types of Christmas cookies ever since i was a little boy. over the years she may rotate several varieties, but nearly every year will include Italian cookies (Cuccidati, Candied fruit biscotti (Pane Di Spani) & Gigilenas), Greek cookies (Paximadias), Mexican cookies (Biscochitos) and a more American style of a sugar-coated spice cookie.

  28. My grandma is the first person I remember cooking with. We used to make bread, and her famous oatmeal chocolate chip cookies!

  29. my mom wasn’t really a cook… or anything. so, my first kitchen memory is of my brother making himself toast (cinnamon toast), making 4 slices at a time and ended up eat an entire loaf of bread after school. i hope to make my home a little different 😉

  30. I grew up along side my Mom in the kitchen. One of my memories was concocting different mixtures and cooking them in the microwave. Pretty sure none of them were a hit 🙂

  31. I am forced to eat Gluten Free so back to the basics is the way I go all the time. Fresh produce and fresh ingredients. This book sounds awesome! I will have to start canning this season because store bought products always have unwanted ingredients in them!

  32. Forgot to add my memory to my above post…ooops sorry!

    My Mom cooking and baking up a storm for the entire family…our house always smelled so yummy and all my friends would always manage to end up at my house around dinner time! Thanks to Mom!

  33. I remember cooking along with my mom. She taught me to make things from scratch and I am so greatful for this knowledge. Thanks Mom

  34. I clearly remember my granny giving me the task of making dessert for dinner; started out with instant pudding and gradually moved up to peach cobbler, apple crisp and rice pudding! My first attempt at making something on my own was a spice cake; turned out PERFECT except I forgot to grease and flour the pans! Came out in pieces so we just snacked on it with no frosting…It was awesome anyway!!

  35. Playing with pots and pans on the floor while my mom made our meal 🙂 Now I get to have the fun of being on the other side while my son plays with my pots and pans.

  36. My very first kitchen memory is composed of swirls of the yeasty, warm smell of bread rising on the countertop every Saturday morning. My dad was the family breadmaker in the days before the Kitchenaid and I remember the large pottery bowl that housed those multiple loaves of bread as they rose after he kneaded double and triple batches by hand.

  37. One of my first memories was canning pickles with my Grandma. She was a prolific home canner, and I learned so much from her: jams, peaches…but pickles were her specialty!

  38. My very first kitchen memory? Hmmm…my mom didn’t cook much so I guess it was trying to learn to cook once married. 🙂

  39. My first kitchen memory is homemade bread. No breadmaker, no frozen bread dough, just good-old from real ingredients bread. Barely waiting for the knife to saw through it when it’s still warm and the butter would melt the second it touched it. Later my mom had to go back to full-time work and that all fell by the wayside. My younger sister barely remembers it. But oh, it’s sure something my kids know of now!

  40. One of my first kitchen memories is of me and my middle sister making sugar cookies with my mom. We made Thanksgiving cookies using turkey shaped cookie cutters. This was the only time my mom would bust out the silver dragees. We thought they were very special and fancy. We’d ice them in fall colors. This must have been before the third grade because I bought my first cookbook at my 3rd grade book fair…a cookie cookbook of course!

  41. one of my first memories is of eating split pea soup. and adding lots of salt, like my dad did 🙂

  42. I don’t know if I necessarily have a really early memory. But I remember after school everyday helping my Mom cook dinner and we got to talk about the day. Even if I didn’t want to help that day I sat at the bar and talked to my Mom.

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