Roasted Tomato & Cheddar Tart

I was so bummed when I realized last Tuesday snuck up on me without creating a beans and greens post for Summerfest. I vowed not to let the same thing happen this week because this week is all about my favorite fruit/vegetable of all time, drum roll please............the Tomato! It's true, if I had to pick one thing in the fruit and vegetable category as my favorite, it would be the tomato every time. From salads to soups to sauces to this tart, for me it might be the most perfect food. Sure, I could go on and on about the tomato but I'll cut it short and get to why you are all really here, the recipe.

This is something that was inspired by an Iron Chef episode when Chef Art Smith took on Iron Chef Cat Cora in Battle Cheddar and made a delicious look Cheddar & Tomato Pie. He didn't win the battle, sorry if it's a spoiler but it aired awhile ago but that Tomato and Cheddar Pie has stuck with me every since. It appeared to be a bit on the sweet side, while I decided to make my tart more savory, it only seemed right to give a nod to my inspiration.


Cheddar Crust

2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/3 cup aged cheddar - grated
1 Tbsp white vinegar
5 Tbsp iced cold water
1 egg

1. Cut shortening, sea salt and flour together with a pastry cutter or two knives. When it resembles a coarse meal, gently mix in grated cheese.
2. Whisk together water, vinegar and the egg. Pour into flour mixture and mix until dough forms a ball. Place in the refrigerator for at least an hour.


Roasted Tomato & Cheddar Tart

4-5 medium sized tomatoes
3/4 cup 3 year old cheddar
10 sprigs of fresh thyme - leave removed from stems
Cheddar Crust
sea salt
pepper
extra virgin olive oil

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Slice tomatoes into 1/4" - 1/2" rounds. Make sure you have enough to cover a 10" tart. Place rounds on prepared sheet sprinkle with sea salt, fresh cracked pepper and olive oil. Roast for 30 mins until the edges begin to blacken ever so slightly.
2. Remove from oven and let cool to handle. Roll out 1/2 of the cheddar crust (reserve the rest for another use) into a round large enough for a 10" tart pan. Press into pan and prick all over with a fork. Place tart pan onto a cookie sheet cover with aluminum foil and fill with pie weights or rice or dried beans. Place in heated oven and bake for 15 mins. Remove foil and weights and bake for another 7 mins.
3. Remove tart shell from oven and cover bottom with almost all of the cheddar and 1/2 of the thyme leaves, reserve a Tbsp or 2 to sprinkle on top. Place back in the oven and bake for another 10 mins until cheese has melted and begins to brown slightly.
4. Remove from oven and lay tomatoes in a overlapping pattern. Top with remaining thyme leaves and cheddar. Bake for another 10 mins. Remove from oven, let cool to room temperature before serving.


The roasted tomato is what makes this tart work. They are so rich and flavorful and not at all soggy. I think alot of the flavor can also be attributed to the fact that they are perfectly fresh, grown right in my own backyard. The very first of our tomato harvest! I loved the cheddar crust, so deliciously savory that I will likely adapt it for my next apple pie. All in all I'm a fan of this one. One note, resist the urge to add more salt to the finished tart, between the cheese and the salt used to roast the tomatoes no more salt is needed. I think a drizzling of olive oil would be nice, but it truly was exactly what I was going for as is.

Don't forget to check out what the other Summerfest hosts did this week:

Matt Armendariz of Mattbites
Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen
Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple

with guest appearances from:

Shauna and Daniel Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl
Simmer Till Done’s Marilyn Pollack Naron
Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project.

Enjoy!

Wild Blueberry Pancakes with Peach & Brown Sugar Compote

Wild Blueberries are in season in Ontario and we couldn't drive up north last weekend without passing a stand every few miles with a sign touting their Wild Blueberries. Lucky for me the boy loves all things blueberries, so convincing him to stop was quite easy, even though we had already stopped a million times on this one trip. The words that sealed the deal were "I can make a wild blueberry pie." I'm honestly surprised we didn't get into an accident he pulled of the road so quickly. You'll have to stay tuned for the wild blueberry pie later in the week, I promise it's a good one. Today is all about some delicious wild blueberry pancakes. After making my pie there were quite a bit of berries left and though I'm not the biggest pancake person, I suggested making them for breakfast the next morning before we left the cottage. The boy was all about it, so much so that he was willing to get up early so we could have pancakes AND be on the road early enough to miss traffic. Many of you won't know this, but getting him up early on the weekend is a near impossibility, so this was a pretty big deal and let me know I'd better make some amazing pancakes. Before going to bed I scoured the internet for a good recipe that used ingredients we had on hand. I decided on this epicurious recipe and am so glad I did.

Wild Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
adapted from epicurious.com

1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
3 tablespoons sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted, plus more for cooking
2 cups fresh wild blueberries

1. Preheat oven to 250°F. Place baking sheet in oven. Whisk first 4 ingredients in large bowl. Whisk buttermilk, eggs, and 2 tablespoons butter in medium bowl; stir into dry ingredients. Fold in berries.
2. Heat large nonstick griddle or skillet over medium heat; brush with butter. Drop batter by 1/3 cupfuls onto griddle.
3. Cook pancakes until brown, brushing griddle with more butter as needed, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer to sheet in oven to keep warm.

Peach & Brown Sugar Compote

4 Niagara peaches
1/2 cup brown sugar
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and prepare an iced water bath. When the water is boil place washed peaches into boiling water for 60 seconds. Remove to the iced water bath until cool enough to handle. skins will slide right off.
2. Slice each peach into 6 wedges and place into a saucepan with brown sugar, lemon juice and cinnamon. Cook over medium heat until peaches begin to soften and a nice golden liquid forms.
3. Using a slotted spoon, remove the peaches from the liquid and reserve. Heat liquid over medium high heat and boil to reduce by about 1/2 to make a syrup.
4. Pour syrup over reserved peaches and serve with blueberry pancakes.


I think I might be sounding like a broken record these days, because as much as I am not a beet person I'm generally not a pancake person either. I'm not sure if it was the delicious wild blueberries or the peach compote topping, but these were fabulous. I also heated up some pure maple syrup to go along with the pancakes, but no one touched it. They were all about the peach compote topping, which was nice as it was something I just threw together since we had a glut of Niagara peaches. Make this breakfast, you can ever switch up the berries in the pancakes or the fruit in the compote, maybe a banana pancake with strawberry compote or peach pancakes with raspberry compote a nod to peach melba. Enjoy!

YWPWT - Orange Chocolate Walnut Tartlette

This month's theme is brought to us by the ever fabulous Jacque at Daisy Lane Cakes:

Nuts about Pie!!

Let’s get creative with nature’s protein and nutrient powerhouse, the humble nut. Peanuts, cashews, almonds, pecans, pistachios… whatever you chose, let’s use nuts as a prominent feature in next month’s pie. Whether it’s a nut-based shell that perfectly complements the filling, or a nut-studded filling, I can’t wait to see what all you creative bakers come up with.

Don’t forget about coconut, which is a nut too, right?

And for those with nut allergies, feel free to use substitutions… or skip the nuts and get artistic with peanut shaped crust… or whatever. Be creative! Whatever you do, have fun and we’ll see you next month!


Now I like nuts, but I have to be honest I wasn't that jazzed about making a nutty pie. I love peanut butter but I already made a peanut buttery pie for my Lifestyles of the Rich & Famous Pie. Thus I was faced with a dilemma, what to do, what kinda of pie would be tasty and satisfying and would use up some ingredients I already had on hand. In looking in my cupboard I found a huge bag of walnut halves making my choice if what nut to use easy. I decided on a walnut crust and since I love chocolate and walnuts, it turned into a chocolate & walnut crust that I made with walnuts, cocoa powder, butter and an egg. I also found some lovely organic Valencia oranges from a Mama Earth box that were on the verge of turning and though Chocolate and Orange are a classic combo so I made them into a delicious orange curd, following this recipe for lime curd. To make it even more rich, like that was necessary!?! I folded the orange curd with a mascarpone whipped cream mixture. It truly was a dish I just threw together and didn't pay much attention to recipe or amounts, which is why I am not writing it up here.


The folks at the office gobbled up three 4" tarts and I kept one at home for the boy and I. I ate my half while he was still at work was really happy with the flavors, it could use a little more orange I thought but it was a solid start. The boy was not a fan, he admitted to not liking chocolate and orange together and felt the crust was too chocolaty (as if that's even possible) and the custard needed more orange. Well, you can't please them all, but I liked what I came up with considering I thought about bailing this month. Head on over to You Want Pies With That after August 7th to check out what the other talented ladies created. Enjoy!

Peach & Radish Salsa

I first heard about Summer Fest 2009 from Jaden Hair, one of the organizers, via her blog Steamy Kitchen. I love the idea of this cross blog celebration of fresh-from-the-garden food. Each week there is a different topic, I missed out on last weeks fresh herbs but am jumping in with this week fruit from trees. See below for more info on Sumerfest and how you too can participate.

One of my favorite fruit from trees are peaches. I have sung the praises of peaches here before so I won't bore you, other than to say I was ecstatic to find that peaches are grown right here in Ontario and I found this past weekend that they are now in season here in Ontario. On a stop at a local farmer's market on our way up north I acquired some gorgeous local peaches, radishes, peppers and jalapenos. As we continued on our way to the cottage I decided to make a peach and radish salsa, not only to use the beautiful fruits and veggies from the farmer's market but also because I've been challenging myself lately to make at the very least mostly local dishes, with the goal being completely local. I have yet to wean myself from spices yet and as there is no salt or pepper local to Ontario it may be a awhile before I go completely local.



Peach & Radish Salsa

4 small peaches
4 large or 6 small radishes
1 small orange bell pepper
1/2 jalapeno pepper
1 handful fresh cilantro with stems
1/2 lime - juice
salt & pepper

1. Blanch cleaned peaches in boil water for 1 minute, then immediately place in a large bowl of iced cold water. Let sit in water for 2 minutes or until cool enough to handle and carefully remove the skins.
2. Cut peach flesh away from pit and cut into a 1/2 inch dice. Wash radishes and cut into a 1/2 inch dice.
3. Wash & seed orange pepper and cut into a 1 inch dice. Wash & seed half a jalapeno pepper and mince finely. Roughly chop cilantro.
4. In a non reactive bowl toss together peaches, radishes, peppers, cilantro and lime juice. Salt & pepper to taste. Serve immediately or it will get soggy.


This was a deliciously sweet & savory salsa with the sweetness of the peaches pairing nicely with bite of the radishes. I'm not a huge radish fan but really enjoyed this. We ate the salsa with just some multi grain tortilla chips, but I think it would also be delicious on a grilled hot dog with some shredded cheddar.

How you can join Summer Fest

Summer Fest 2009 is a four-week, cross-blog celebration co-created (alphabetically listed) by A Way to Garden, Matt Armendariz of Mattbites, Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, and Todd and Diane of White on Rice Couple, with guest appearances from Shauna and Daniel Ahern of Gluten-Free Girl, Simmer Till Done’s Marilyn Pollack Naron, and Paige Smith Orloff of The Sister Project. And from you—that’s critical. Your contributions are desired, and needed.

Will you play along? Have a recipe or tip that fits any of our weekly themes? Starting today, with the subject of herbs, you can contribute in various ways, big or small. Contribute a whole post, or a comment—whatever you wish. It’s meant to be fun, viral, fluid. No pressure, just delicious. The possibilities:

Simply leave your tip or recipe or favorite links in the comments below a Summer Fest post on my blog, and then go visit my collaborators and do the same.

The cross-blog event idea works best when you leave your recipe or favorite links (whether to your own blog or someone else’s) at all the host blogs. That way, they are likely to be seen by the widest audience. Everyone benefits, and some pretty great dialog starts simmering.

Or think bigger: Publish entire entire posts of your own, if you wish, and grab the juicy Summer Fest 2009 tomato badge (illustrated by Matt of Mattbites).

Summer Fest 2009 Schedule:

• Tuesday, July 28: HERBS. Any and all.

• Tuesday, August 4: FRUITS FROM TREES (also known as stone fruits, but we won’t scream if you toss in a berry or another fruit, promise).

• Tuesday, August 11: BEANS-AND-GREENS WEEK (either or both, your choice).

• Tuesday, August 18: TOMATO WEEK. How do you like them love apples?

Hope you'll join in or at least check out what some of the other participants are doing. Enjoy!

Pickled Golden Beets

I have to start this post by saying beets are a veggie I've never been a fan of, I tried them as a child I've tried them as an adult and they just aren't up there on the veggie list for me. The problem here is that the boy LOVES them, and they are a veggie that you can easily and cheaply get in Canada year round. I experimented with oven roasting them this winter and enjoyed them, and I would like to try to use them to color the next red velvet cake I make, but I don't know that I'll ever be excited to eat beets.

All that being said, in a effort to try to make things not only that I like but that the boy likes too I happily accepted the golden beets that came in this weeks Mama Earth basket. Red and golden beets add such beautiful color to any plate so whether I like to eat them or not I'll always enjoy how they look. In an effort to not heat up the kitchen too much I thought pickled beets would be nice and decided to try a recipe I saw on Simply Recipes. I've never pickled anything before, so instead of futzing with Elise's recipe I followed it as written.


Pickled Beets
from Simply Recipes

1 bunch (4 or 5) beets
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 Tbsp sugar
1 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
Salt and pepper

1. Remove greens from beets, save for future use (I may try them in a green smoothie or braise them with some white beans). Cut beets to uniform sizes so they will cook evenly. Steam or boil around 30 minutes or until done. (Alternatively, you can roast them by wrapping them whole in foil and cooking them in a 350°F oven for about an hour.) A fork easily inserted into the beet will tell you if the beets are done or not.

2. Drain the beets, rinsing them in cold water. Use your fingers to slip the peels off of the beets. The peels should come off easily. Discard the peels. Slice the beets.

3. Make the vinaigrette by combining the cider vinegar, sugar, olive oil, and dry mustard. Whisk ingredients together with a fork. The dry mustard will help to emulsify the vinaigrette. Adjust to taste. Add salt and pepper to taste. Combine beets and vinaigrette in a bowl and allow to marinate for a half hour at room temperature.

The boy really enjoyed these. Mainly because I did something with beets, but also because they are just plain good. While I don't know that these will convert me to a beet lover, I am looking forward to putting them on a salad of organic romaine with some delicious goat cheese. I do love what a simple and straight forward recipe this is, and quick and easy way to prepare any beets that come in your CSA box or if you happen to buy some at a local farm stand. They are full on in season and beautiful in Ontario right now. Enjoy!