Karen's Breakfast Frittata

This is my daughter Karen's Breakfast Frittata.

It's her Go-To breakfast for guests and special morning meals.

She made this the weekend Rick visited her, but hasn't had a chance to post it, so I'm posting it for her.

It looks delicious!

Ingredients:

One pie crust from Trader Joe's

7 links breakfast sausage

1 onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, minced

4-6 chopped mushrooms

Grated cheddar cheese, about 1 cup

1 sliced green onion

6 eggs

Karen's note: parsley has been omitted.

Press the pie crust into a quiche pan, pie pan, or baking dish.

Cook the link sausage and slice into bite-sized pieces.

Chop the vegetables.

She varies this with spinach, bacon and what ever leftovers she has on hand.

Put the ingredients into a bowl and add 6 well beaten eggs.

Mix well.

Pour the mixture into the pie crust and bake at 350 degrees F for 30 to 40 minutes, until eggs are set.

Serve with sliced fruit for a delicious breakfast.

Bon appetit!

***

While coming home on Route 99 from California's cornucopia, Fresno, yesterday, I saw several trucks carrying chickens. One was a big rig with a "Show Chickens" sign on the outside, and others were flat-bed trucks with cages of chickens stacked together, their feathers blowing in the wind.

It reminded me of when we had chickens here at home.

It started for us when the kids attended St. Matthew's Nursery School. We got "Bumpy Bunny" when someone found him on the street and gave him to the school. The school gave him to us, since their menagerie was full at the time and he needed a home.

The kids were comfortable with Bumpy Bunny (named because his angora soft hair was totally matted, and when you pet him, all you felt were bumps), since they had chickens and rabbits at school to hold and carry around.

But not me.

I'm not exactly an animal person.

To tell the truth, I was kind of afraid of him.

I had to get a towel to pick him up.

What a sight that was to see me running around the yard chasing a bumpy bunny with a towel because I was afraid of him!

After Bumpy Bunny and I became friends, I eventually got used to him and could pick him up with one swipe by the scruff of his neck. As his hair grew out, we trimmed all the matted parts off until his fur was nice and soft.

Bumpy Bunny was pretty cute.

Sometimes, I would take the kids to Macklin's, our neighborhood feed store, to get Bumpy's food.

As the kids and I were entering Macklin's one day, we spotted a pen of baby chicks.

On a whim, we picked out 7, got some feed, and took them home.

Look at how cute they are!

Thus began my education about chickens.

This one's a banty chicken, a variety of chicken that is smaller than others.

Here's the banty chicken a little older.

When the chickens were young, the kids could carry them around, just like they did at nursery school.

This one's a Plymouth Rock chicken. There were three of those.

They're really beautiful.

We had a couple of Rhode Island Reds, too, and a white one like Foghorn Leghorn.

Gary built a chicken coop, but the chickens mostly ran around the yard.

We fed the chickens kitchen scraps and flax seeds, and they got to scratch the dirt and run around the yard to eat bugs and insects to their heart's desire.

The kids had a lot of fun with them. On rainy days, the kids would go around the yard and pick up all the worms that come out of the ground onto the walkways and feed them to the chickens, delighting to see them gobble the worms up.

Until the chickens grew up and I found out I had gotten 7 roosters, not hens.


Roosters are not nice.

The chickens roosters grew up into an unruly gang. They all ran together and pretty much took control of the yard. It was time for them to go when they got aggressive and started to throw their bodies against the kids with their feet extended.

By then, they were about 7 pounds each and too fast to catch. We had clipped the feathers of their wings on one side, so they couldn't fly, but we couldn't catch them.

Gary called his childhood neighbor, Richard Johnson, for advice. Rich came right over, with a couple of gunny sacks and some twine. He said to catch chickens you have to sweep their feet.

We watched in amazement as Rich swept their feet, easily catching them. Rich said that when you hold them by the feet and turn them upside-down, they become docile and still. He bound their feet with twine and stuffed them into the gunny sacks and took them away.

*Relief*

Rich later said he gave them away to several families and they made wonderful meals because they were so plump and healthy.


I'm so lucky to have married a man that puts up with my whims and takes such good care of us. And the chickens.

He didn't even get mad when I brought home some pullets the next year.

Pullets are hens that are less than a year old. They cost a little bit more, but it's worth it to not get roosters.

Every morning we'd go out to collect eggs with rich orange yolks from the chickens.


When I hear a rooster crowing in the morning, I think of the days we had chickens.


I think of Rich Johnson, too.

That's Richard Johnson in the back row, first on the left.

Richard, and his wife Lily, lived across the street and were important to the Fujimoto family, always generously helping them with whatever they needed.

Everyone in the Fujimoto family has great Richard Johnson stories to tell, but I'll save those for another time.

He is missed.

No printable recipe for this one yet.