I love everything about hosting gatherings…planning the menu, shopping for ingredients, playing with the table setting, making the food, and enjoying time with guests around the table!

This is something I took for granted, but since we’ve spent nearly a year and a half without it, I am SO delighted and grateful to be able to host people again! Indoors!

Last weekend was the first non-family gathering I’ve hosted since April of last year and it was for the same volunteer team!

teapot and garden flowers table decor.jpg

I planned a brunch menu to include one of our favorites, an absolutely delicious, easy, healthy, and gluten free broccolini potato frittata. This has been a staple for quick and easy brunch, luncheon, or supper fare at our house ever since Jenna saw the recipe on Smitten Kitchen a few years ago.

To round out the menu, I also served fruit salad, and a green salad with goat cheese, candied orange bits, and sugared pecans.

And I couldn’t resist trying the cinnamon rolls with chai frosting from the new Half Baked Harvest cookbook my sister just gave me. (I’ve mentioned we are a very food-centric family, right?) These are decidedly NOT gluten free, or remotely healthy unless we can maybe invent some health benefit for cinnamon…but OMGosh they are sooooooo addictive.

Sorry, sugar coma…back to the brunch!

Tablesetting

My tablecloths tend to basic white and neutrals and I wanted something with a bit more going on, so I topped the tablecloth with a blue and green quilt. Turned on the diagonal, the queen size covered the table nicely - I only had to tuck the points up under the edge on the sides so no one would trip and pull the whole thing overboard.

I used gold charger plates topped with our white everyday dishes and then added salad plates and fruit bowls in a blue chintzware pattern. I selected teacups with mostly blues and greens from my assortment, and 6 different teapots with similar colors to style as a centerpiece around a planter of ivy and ferns. Two of the teapots got filled with flowers cut from the yard…fortunately the blue hydrangeas are blooming!

Favors

I like to include little thank you gifts for my guests and this time I used handmade soaps from the local farm stand. They were packaged so nicely and worked really well with the tablesetting. It’s a little dicey to plop soap in a dish that will hold food, so I layered in a cocktail napkin to make sure no one got a taste of soap with their fruit!

Food

I’ll rhapsodize about the cinnamon rolls another time (I made a pan of a dozen rather than a loaf of 6 if you happen to buy the cookbook).

But here is the fritatta recipe everyone wanted to know about! It’s pretty foolproof and the amounts and ingredients are flexible. It’s basically veggies + eggs + cheese. If you can’t find broccolini, I’m sure chopped broccoli florets would work, though I haven’t tried it with that yet.

What is broccolini, anyway, you ask?

Broccolini has tender enough stems to use so it works with the relatively short cooking time in this recipe, and it has a milder flavor than its broccoli cousin. Broccolini is NOT the same as broccoli rabe which is more bitter, and it isn’t baby broccoli either even though that is what the name sounds like. Rather, it is a cross between broccoli and Chinese broccoli. Here is a photo in case you need to know what you are looking for in the produce aisle!

Potato Broccolini Frittata Recipe

first discovered on Smitten Kitchen

Ingredients

10 oz (10 or so) baby or creamer potatoes, halved or quartered into bite sized pieces
1 cup vegetable stock (Better Than Bouillon is my favorite brand and I ALWAYS have jar of every flavor they make on hand in the fridge)
1 small red or yellow onion thinly sliced
1 bunch broccolini (about 8 oz), chopped
1/4 cup olive oil (you can skimp on this a bit to reduce the calories if you like, with no adverse effects)
3.5 ounces grated parmesan cheese (PLEASE use real parmesan for this, not that cheese-flavored-food-like substance in the green canister! - I like to buy a hunk of good imported parmesan and grate it fairly fine - a food processor makes this super fast and easy)
8 large eggs
salt and pepper

Directions

Add potatoes and vegetable stock to a 10”-12” sauté or oven safe frying pan. Simmer, turning occasionally, until potatoes are tender and liquid has cooked down to nearly dry, about 10 minutes
Add onion, broccolini, and olive oil tossing to coat. Cover and cook over medium heat until tender, around 5 minutes.
Beat eggs with half the parmesan, season with salt and pepper
Pour egg mixture over the vegetables in the pan. Reduce heat and cover. Cook until eggs are mostly set, taking care not to burn. This only take a few minutes.
Preheat broiler to high and position rack close to broiler
Sprinkle remaining parmesan evenly over the top of the frittata and broil until just starting to brown - keep an eye on this - in my oven it takes less than 3 minutes.
Slice into wedges and serve warm.