This is such an easy and versatile lunch time recipe! It can be great fun to make with the kids, as they can help with mixing the eggs and adding the ingredients to the pan.

It pretty much involves any leftover pasta or rice that you have in the fridge, which can be also mixed with any veg or meat that needs using up. It is certainly a zero waste recipe, which are all about. We love thinking of new ways to avoid wasting food. We also love to use Nonno’s old saying “in cucina, ci vuole fantasia” (“you need imagination/creativity in the kitchen” – and so in life I rather think!). Hence, this recipe was born!

You can use any veg or meat of your choice, which is left over. It will need to be something you can cook quickly, or that just needs heating up (i.e. ham or leftover cooked chicken). If you do use veg that needs cooking (i.e. peppers or courgette), make sure to cook this in the pan first, and then add the pasta/rice leftovers.

For our version, we had some left over macaroni with onions, peas and tomato sauce. There really wasn’t enough left to make a whole family meal. So instead, we turned it in to a frittata (essentially and Italian omelette). 

We also had a couple of chestnut mushrooms in the fridge, so decided to whack those in too. It would also have gone really well with some ham or left over chicken but we didn’t have any.

You can use our recipe as a guideline to start with, and then add your own touch to it. Have fun with it!

Ingredients – Makes enough for; 1 adult + 2 young children

Prep time – 10 minutes

Cooking time -15-20 minutes

Cooling time – 5 minutes

• Leftover pasta (macaroni with tomato sauce, peas and onions)
• 2 eggs per adult/child + 1 egg for toddler/baby (in our case, we used 5 eggs).
• 2 chestnut mushrooms
• Drizzle of olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste (optional)
• Dash of milk
• Parmesan cheese

Method

1. Pre-heat fan oven to 160 degrees.

2. Drizzle some olive oil in a medium frying pan. Turn on hob to medium heat.

3. Chop the mushrooms and add to the pan. Fry until cooked.

4. Add the leftover pasta to the pan (if you want to add any cooked meat, do this now). Mix all together. Add salt and pepper to taste (optional).

5. Cook on low heat until heated through.

6. In the meantime, whisk the eggs in a bowl with a dash of milk (the kids enjoy helping with this. Warning: you may get egg mixture everywhere!).

7. Spread pasta mix evenly in the pan. Then pour the egg mixture in over the pasta mix in the pan. Ensure it’s all evenly coated in egg mixture.

8. Transfer pan to the oven. Leave for 5-10 minutes, until the frittata has risen and all the egg is cooked. You can check this with a knife.

9. Make sure to USE AN OVEN GLOVE. The pan handle will be HOT!!

10. Once done, leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Cut in to slices and serve.