Baked Vegetable and Olive Frittata (Baked egg dish)

 This dish sounds very exotic...but quite simple with egg, cheese and vegetables (olives).

It is not vegan as it is loaded with egg (including yolks), cheese and milk.  It was my first baking experience with egg and we tried it the South Indian style mixing it in Rice.. it was delicious..


Baked Vegetable and Olive Frittata
Courtesy: The Little Big vegetarian book - Page 713

2 red bell peppers (could use green bell peppers)
1 kg tomatoes
4 small onions
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil (can use refined oil)
1 small bunch of aromatic herbs (oregano, basil, thyme) finely chopped
(can use a Italian spice mix)
salt to taste
4 eggs (can use egg beaters /imitation egg)
125 ml milk
215g freshly grated Gruyere cheese (used Mozarella/processed cheese)
100 g black olives (pitted) - used Canned olives

Directions
Preheat oven to 200C/400C. Saute the onion, bell peppers and tomatoes (chopped coarse) in a frying pan with salt and oil until vegetables soften. You could put bell peppers and tomatoes in microwave for 3 mins to peel the skin off. I however don't peel the skin off as the skin holds the most nutrients..

In another bowl beat the eggs, add the milk and cheese and mix well. Add the fried vegetables into the mix and pour into a baking dish. Garnish on top with olives (cut into halves) and bake for 25-30 min or until set and golden on top. Serve warm or cold

I served it warm with Rice. The cheese I used (Pizza cheese/processed cheese) kept the dish moist in the middle although the top was golden brown and crisp.

The fun part is that the kids ate it well. Usually they don't like any type of egg other than boiled egg with salt/pepper. So, this was a pleasant surprise. Sindhu was all excited thinking it was a pizza as it came out of the oven in baked fashion.. Kavya especially loved the olives on top..