Photo: whitneyinchicago/Flickr

Contributed by Casey Rackham, a BU Journalism student and current intern at WBUR.

Whenever Mother Nature gives the gift of sunshine to Boston, I can’t help but spend almost all my time outside in the park near my apartment. It somehow feels like a crime not to soak up all of that juicy Vitamin-D while I can. However, I’ve learned that I’m quite limited as to what I can eat on the grass outside without bringing all of my tableware and utensils. I’m usually left with a bag of chips and some dip. How boring.

Thanks to Emily at A Cambridge Story blog, I can officially put generic ‘park’ snacks back in my pantry and class up my meal with perfectly-sized Tomato and Scallion Frittata Cups. While Emily makes her frittatas with shallots, cherry tomatoes, sundried tomatoes, eggs, scallions and some mozzarella cheese, she also notes that you can throw into the mix whatever vegetables and fillers you may have buried away in your refrigerator.

For me, the best part of these colorful breakfast-turned-lunch frittatas is not their flavor, but rather the fact that they’re baked in muffin tins. The muffin tin allows for a portion-controlled meal (unless you live by the “just one more won’t hurt me” philosophy, like I do), plus a delectable dish that can be eaten in the park sans fork and knife.

If you want to find me now, I’ll be out in the sun with a book in one hand and a frittata in the other.