Summer Lunch @Home

Do you think maybe, watching DVR'd cooking shows while working out on the Elliptical is a bad thing?  Today I caught a dated Molto Mario where he made a salad with a frittata.  It's called:
Frittata Salad: Frittatine Verdi in Insalata  it sounded wonderful. But I didn't give it a second thought as I didn't have a lot of those ingredients on hand.  After exercising I watched another stored episode where he stuffed a veal roast--saved that idea for the winter!

However, when I went foraging through the fridge for lunch fixins' I thought of the frittata and wanted a salad with eggs.  The herb drawer proved to be a big disappointment today, so much for Mario's inspiration.  So I grabbed Arugula, two Eggs, Sun-Dried Tomato Gouda Cheese, a small remnant of Parmesan Reggiano, and a Cantaloupe. Still not sure where this is all gonna fit, and at the last second before closing the fridge door I grabbed bacon.  Cause everyone says everything is always better with bacon.  Also the left over piece of French Baguette, which is hard as a rock!  Think like a "Chopped" market basket of ingredients!  I was up for the challenge!

First I rub the baguette with water and tightly wrap in foil. Preheating the oven to 375 and prepping the bacon, I decide not to go the brown sugar route and used freshly ground Black Pepper.  Pressed the pepper into the bacon placed on small rack on small sheet pan and put into the oven along with the bread.

Thinking of what to do with the eggs I plan to add Fines Herbes from the dried collection to the lightly beaten eggs.  Heated butter and olive oil in nonstick skillet and added eggs gently pushing the edges to the center until a nice "pancake" is formed. Drizzle on some shredded parm, flip the frittata when I feel the center is almost completely set and finish less than one minute later!  Set this on the cutting board to cool before cutting into strips.  Why? Because Mario said frittata's are good warm, room temp and even chilled.

The Cantaloupe is cut in half, one half wrapped and stored for later use, the other peeled and cut up into pieces and served as a side dish to the salad rather than in it. Since now I've decided to grab a lemon and make a quick vinaigrette with lemon, dijon mustard, fines herbes, black pepper and what else?  Bacon Drippings! Cause everything goes better with Bacon!

Plating--Sliced the Frittata into strips tossed with arugula and chunks of the still warm bacon and a drizzle of vinaigrette.  Two slices of Sun-dried Tomato Gouda and several very thin slices of the crunchy baguette. I was using the soup and sandwich plates we have from IKEA, for this so I placed the melon chunks in the bowls and sprinkled them with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.  I know, never heard of seasoning your Cantaloupe?  This is the way we ate it at home with biscuits and butter, and it was perfect following to the peppered bacon and pepper in the vinaigrette!  See, a peppery theme!  

Lunch was greatly appreciated and once again the opportunity to utilize ingredients on hand saved a trip to the store in the heat!  Now I need inspiration for dinner!!  To quote a chef friend:  "...chef advantage, we can always come up with something!"  Thanx for that tidbit Christine!