Yesterday when I got home from work I noticed that a few houses down there were some little kids selling lemonade in their driveway. Being the Good Samaritan that I am, I grabbed my wallet and walked down. Imagine my surprise when they were not, in fact, selling Gatorade poured into plastic pitchers, but rather fresh zucchini (“zookenee- 75 sents”) and cucumbers! I made them eternally happy (for the next 5 minutes) and purchased a big honking zucchini. The other day my friend Alan, a faithful Wegmans employee, told me that the best flavored zucchinis are ones that you can fit your thumb and forefinger around. I have the utmost respect for Wegmans and everything they do, but this one, albeit very large, was conveniently located and accompanied by adorable smiling children. Sorry, Alan.

I recently watched an episode of 30 Rock (Tina Fey is my idol) in which Liz Lemon tells Jack Donaghy “I was going to take this class called ‘Cooking for One’ but the teacher killed himself.” As much as I adore her and simultaneously fear that I will end up as twisted and lonely as she is, I do not believe cooking for one should be so sad. Tonight my whole family is out- yes, my 4th grade brother is at the movies with friends and I’m watching Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, so I decided to make myself a lovely meal.

I hate that there are commercials for eggs. And for other things that seem unnecessary to advertise, like cotton. Water. The state of California? I digress. Despite the dumb commercials, I am a firm believer that eggs are good for any meal, so I decided on a frittata for this evening. I probably have an omelette for dinner at least once a week but because I was sharing this with the public I decided to be a little fancier, a.k.a. leave it flat and finish it under the broiler. Black tie optional.

Whenever I make eggs I use one full egg and two whites, partially because someone told me once that that was the healthy ratio, and partially because I like the shade of yellow it makes. For this I did two full eggs and two whites, because I thought I might need additional egg to fill out my frittata.

Doesn’t my manicure look nice? OPI on Collins Ave, FYI.

Then I decided to include all of my favorite flavors, starting with garlic. I would eat garlic clove by clove if asked. My family is annoyingly sensitive to it (“My eyes are watering!!”- my mother) so whenever I’m home alone I make things extra garlicky. God, I’m a rebel. I sauteed one big fat clove in a little bit of extra virgin olive oil for a few seconds.

Then I added some chopped fresh basil. My mom brought me home a little herb garden with basil, parsley, and oregano from the farmers market. I cried tears of joy. She told me to water it and walked away.

And finally the zucchini. I don’t have a mandoline (mental note to add one to the fake wedding registry), so I just used my knife and sliced it as thin as I could. I let the zucchini cook until slightly translucent with the basil and garlic.

Then I poured in my eggs (which I added a little bit of milk, salt and pepper to) and let that cook for a couple minutes. Once it starts to come away from the edge of the pan, sprinkle a little cheese on top (I used parmesan) and then stick it under the broiler for two or three minutes.

Let it cool for five minutes or so, then flip it onto a plate. I added tomato slices on top to make it more colorful, and also because I love tomatoes.

Pretty. Healthy. Easy. Yummy.

In case you need them..

Ingredients:

1-2 tbs extra virgin olive oil

1-2 garlic cloves

1/4 cup basil, chopped

1/2 cup zucchini, sliced thin

2 eggs + 2 egg whites

1 tbs milk

salt and pepper

parmesan cheese

tomato (optional)

P.S. When I bake cookies, I reserve one or two cookies-worth of dough and keep it in the fridge. Then a week or so later after all the cookies have been eaten I secretly bake off my stash from the fridge and eat them fresh out of the oven on top of ice cream. Selfish, or genius? I’ll be doing that for dessert.