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 first memory was pulling salt water taffy with my Dad. He showed me how to grab a big glob and stretch it while we said, “Wheeeeeeeee!”. I think I was about 3.
    If I don’t win that cookbook I just gotta buy it!.

  2. Waking up early when visiting my grandma and watching her cook breakfast and bake treats for us …and getting to lick the spoon, bowl, AND beaters!

  3. I have so many memories from my kitchen! The very first one? My mom would pull a stool up to the counter so I could see what she was doing and “help” her make dinner. Oh I’m sure I slowed her down, but she instilled a strong love of cooking in me.

  4. My mom’s special days porridge– i.e. warm homemade chocolate pudding for breakfast. . . I remember watching her make it and smelling it on those special days. Finally learned to make it myself a few years ago and I am starting the same tradition for my daughter:)

  5. Helping my mom bake christmas cookies. She’d make over a dozen different kinds for my dad’s business associates. Talk about helping out the family business!

  6. Watching my Dad make whole wheat pancakes for dinner–he did it every Sunday. He’d grind the wheat in the old wheat grinder that sounded like a plane was landing in our kitchen, then mix the batter in a large pitcher and pour it straight onto the griddle. I loved those pancakes!
    The cookbook looks great! I’d love to win. 🙂

  7. Making Ste-Catherine’s taffy with my mom. Well, might not be my earliest one, but definately a very fun one 🙂

  8. Baking brownies with my sister in the kitchen. Mom wouldn’t buy treats, but we could make them. I also remember a VERY dense whole wheat bread loaf. Thankfully, that’s improved.

  9. Um, my first kitchen memory was when we got the GIANT microwave in the early microwave days. I think it was as big as the oven but my parents learned to cook EVERYTHING in it. I think that’s why I rarely if ever use our current microwave! I love fresh and crunchy food. My own form of rebellion. 🙂

  10. My very first kitchen memory is making a big hole in the middle of the crepes my mother made and putting them on my head! She let me do it because she said I ate very little and she could care less how I ate is long as I did 🙂

  11. My earliest kitchen memories were in my Omi (Grandmother’s) kitchen. She was busy while I played with bowls and wooden spoons on the floor. Her kitchen was always clean and smelled good.

  12. Watching my mom prepare food that I liked! Also, cracking my tooth on edge of counter while looking at a Chef Boy R Dee pizza box!

  13. Some of my earliest kitchen memories include pizza on Saturday night and popcorn on Sunday night.

  14. Ooh, the perfect breakfast!
    My first kitchen memory was begging my Mom to teach me how to make whole wheat bread. It was so exciting when she showed me how!

  15. I remember helping crush cooked apples from our tree as we made apple sauce. I also remember my dad scraping the cream off our milk from Daisy, our milking cow. And then pouring that thick, rich, creamy milk from steel bucket to pitchers for the fridge.

  16. My first kitchen memory is banging a copper jello mold pan that my mom used to have. I would have been maybe a year old!

  17. Sitting on the counter while my mother cooked digging a spoon in the tub of butter and eating it right off the spoon!

  18. My first kitchen memory was getting up early Saturday mornings and helping my dad make waffles. I got to stand on the stool and stir the batter and then open the waffle maker when they were done.

  19. Memories….Remembering my childhood everyday, especially when I’m in the kitchen. It’s an old Scottish tradition for grandmothers to invite family to Sunday afternoon tea, which was quite an event in my grandmother’s home.
    One weekend I was there with her preparing the scones, – her special recipe using buttermilk, her famous shortbread that I marked with the prongs of a huge kitchen fork, and the raspberry jam that she made in next to no time.
    I still remember the aromas of home-baking from her kitchen, and consider myself privileged to have shared this experience with her. Today, I have all her recipes in a treasured recipe notebook, well thumbed, on my kitchen shelf.

  20. I’m not sure if it’s my earliest memory, but licking the batter off the mixer paddles is certainly one of my earliest memories. 🙂

  21. Grating cheese with a great SaladMaster grater (rotary but doesn’t fit in your hand but suctioned to the counter).

  22. My first and best cooking memory is of my Grammy making a pumpkin roll. It was so yummy and is still one of my favorites. I make it for my four little ones now.

  23. Watching my mom make a deep dish apple pie and letting me make a treat for myself with left over pie dough.

  24. My first memory in the kitchen is watching my granny make French Toast. I always loved going to her house and having French Toast for breakfast and crab soup with ham sandwiches for lunch!

  25. I remember my babysitter mixing together flour & water. I sat at the table & kneaded my little heart out! Lol

  26. Sounds like a wonderful cookbook! A memory I have is my parents making Swedish pancakes for us on the weekends. Yum!

  27. Hmmm… probably baking with the “Easy Bake” oven with my sister! My mom did a lot of baking but we weren’t really involved in the prep and cooking. I’m trying to change that in my family! Charlotte loves to bake and I hope to learn how to include her more and more in our family baking and cooking.

  28. this sounds like such an awesome cookbook – right up my alley!

    one of my first kitchen memories is my sister burning eggs while trying to cook breakfast for my parents. 🙂

  29. My first memory is waking up smelling the doughnuts my mother was making. I would get to sugar them in a paper bag, and, of course, eat a few. The cookbook looks wonderful.

  30. Look at those cute little boys making frittata!!!! Love it.
    I remember fetching myself my own cereal in the morning and being soooo proud of mysef.

  31. My first kitchen memory is watching my mom decorate fancy cakes for each of our birthdays. I certainly didn’t appreciate all of the time it took until I began doing it for my own children!

  32. I remember my mom fixing two eggs and I got both yolks and my brother got the white part. We liked on a certain part of the eggs. I haven’t thought of that in ages, thanks for reminding me.

  33. My earliest memory of cooking was helping my Grandmother knead bread in Newfoundland… I was about 6 and thought it was the neatest thing to make and tasted so good hot out of the oven… She made bread everyday for her family, she went through 10lbs of flour a week… To this day when I bake my own bread I remember that sweet smell of baking bread and it brings me to my nana’s house…

  34. Besides baking cookies, I remember trying to make my first angel food cake and it ended up only 2 inches tall!

  35. Believe it or not, I remember my mom handing me a “fresh from the package” hotdog and eating it as I walked out of the kitchen. I was 1 1/2 or 2 at the time. Ahhhh the 70’s 🙂

  36. definitely making christmas cookies with my mom. she has a great sugar cookie recipe that we all devour (sometimes before we get to decorating)!

  37. I love the pics of your boys cooking. I don’t have a lot of kitchen memories as a child. one of a special wreath christmas cookie when I was very young. Then memories of learning to cook as a teenager for my father & I, lots of hits & misses, but decided I would learn to bake & I did. My favorite memories are cooking with my 4 children as soon as they could stir. My oldest was a pancake champ @ 18 months. They all loved baking & cooking with me. Most impotant my daughter is continuing with her children, my 3yo grandaughter is the “best potato masher” always her job @ home & visiting Grandma & Grandpa, she loves baking. They bake bread & cookies weekly just like we did. My 1yo grandson is starting to get in the act. I would love this cookbook to give my daughter. She is beginning a cookbook collection of her own. I collect old cookbooks, church& community books & esp. love to find handwritten notebooks,recipe cards etc. Have also started to get a few new books, but love to find them @ yardsales, old bookstores etc. Keep cooking with kidsi t’s some of my kids favorite memories.

  38. I’d have to say it was going to my grandma’s and eating her amazing burritos. Everyone would fill up on those before dinner was ready they were so delicious!

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