When life gives you parsley ...

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I don't know why parsley keeps on growing in the boxes on my deck, despite temperatures that have dipped into the 30s overnight. But it's a nice, fresh addition to ingredients I buy for home-cooked meals.

Last week, I made a tabbouleh salad with flat-leaf parsley. On Monday, I made a frittata with lots of flat-leaf and curly parsley. This is what you'll need:

• About two cups or more of chopped parsley.
• Five eggs or the equivalent in egg whites.
• Extra-virgin olive oil.
• Salt, allspice and cumin to taste.

I mixed the chopped parsley and raw eggs with a little low-fat milk, and seasoned them with salt, allspice and cumin. I poured the mixture into a 10-inch, non-stick pan that I had heated up over medium heat with enough olive oil to coat the bottom.

When the bottom was set, I put the pan under the broiler for about 10 minutes, but I would suggest you watch it until the top sets. My frittata was runny, so next time I would cook it longer on the stove before moving it to the oven. 

I also added chunks of Swiss cheese to the egg mixture and, after I poured it into the pan, I put about 10 sun-dried tomatoes on top. I might make it without these additions next time or just use some cheese to give the frittata a little creaminess. 

My mother used to make small parsley or ground-meat omelets, fried in oil, to eat in pocket bread (each omelet contained about two tablespoons of egg mixture). 

In the summer, a sandwich of the small meat omelet, called egge (pronounced edge-eh), tasted especially good with a fat slice of Jersey beefsteak tomato.