Belated Food Friday: Zucchini & Tomato Tart

Errands I had to run yesterday made me miss my weekly appointment with a new recipe - aka Food Friday - so I decided to play catchup today by making a savory tart. The upside of making a savory dish is that I can have that with a small salad and have fruit for dessert. It's not a snack, but it's a good main dish. The pastry is very crumbly, but really delicious. It's filling, but still light. 


Zucchini & cherry tomato tart

Ingredients for the pastry: 

- 2 cups (250g) all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup (125g) unsalted butter, cut up into 10 or so pieces
- pinch of salt
- one egg
- 1/4 cup of ice water*

Ingredients for the filling: 

- 5 tbsp mascarpone cheese

- 1 tbsp crème fraîche or heavy cream

- a pinch of herbs (I used a combination of thyme, sage and marjoram)

- half a small onion, thinly sliced

- 1/2 a zucchini

- 10 or so cherry tomatoes (I used a mix of red and yellow)

- half a mozzarella ball 

- 1-2 clove of garlic, chopped up

- oregano to sprinkle on top (about 1 tsp)

- pepper to taste

- 1-2 tsp pine nuts (optional)

- tsp olive oil

Instructions: 

Mix all ingredients for the pastry but the water in a food processor until it resembles coarse meal. Add ice water little by little to bind the dough together until the clumps form. 

Place dough on a floured surface, shape into a ball and cover with cling wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 380 degrees Fahrenheit. 

Take pastry out of the fridge and roll out onto the floured surface. Unroll on top of tart pan, and press onto the bottom and the sides. If you're like me, have fun patching the dough back together with a little water. 

In a frying pan, heat up some olive oil and fry onion until tender. Remove from the heat. 

Slice half a zucchini into very thin slices (almost potato chip-like). 

Cut up the cherry tomatoes in half. I picked two colors because I thought that would look prettier, but tastier, if less pretty cherry tomatoes, are fine too. 

Mix together the mascarpone and heavy cream with a fork. Mix in the herbs until just combined. 

Spread mascarpone mixture on the bottom of the pie crust.  

Drop the onion rings on top of the mascarpone mix. 

Place zucchini slices in rows (I made two rows), scatter mozzarella slices between the zucchini rows, and strew the cherry tomatoes on top. 

Dump the garlic over the mozzarella.  

 Grind pepper, sprinkle oregano on top, and brush the cherry tomatoes with a little olive oil. 

Bake for 20 minutes, and cool on rack. 

Enjoy with a nice arugula salad! 


*The recipe I used didn't call for water, and I might have overprocessed it, so the crust was very crumbly, and it fell apart when I tried to pick it up. I'll make sure to follow a different recipe next time.

Food Friday: Chives & Feta Scones

The weather here has been really shitty and dreary these past couple of days -- in other words, perfect for comfort foods. I decided to make these to take to a crêpe party at a friend's, because, you know, they're so light and healthy, and the perfect side dish to a sweet crêpe. Um, who am I kidding? Since our evening plans fell through, we'll have these with something else. What, I have no idea, because I'm running out of fresh ingredients. Why, you ask? Because I can't seem to get the way my mom's car's clutch works, and I end up stalling at every stop so I've been relying on my friendly neighborhood épicerie for groceries. 

I was looking to use up some of my feta and chives and came across this recipe. As usual, I made a few changes, such as using feta instead of goat's cheese because I hate goat's cheese, but love feta. I also couldn't use buttermilk because we don't have such a thing here, so I added some lemon juice to half a cup of milk and let it sit for 5 minutes to make a buttermilk substitute.  

These scones are a little on the bland side, so either use them to dip into something, or add more pepper and maybe a little cumin or paprika or something of the sort. I'm not too great at food pairings, especially when I feel like my taste buds have gone on strike. The texture is interesting, though. Maybe the problem with the taste is that I used frozen chives, because that was all I had. I'll try to make it with fresh chives next time.

Chives and Feta Cheese Scones (makes 8 large triangular scones)

Ingredients: 

- 1 cup all purpose flour

- 1 tsp baking powder

- 1/2 tsp sugar

- 1/4 tsp baking soda

- 1/4 tsp salt

- 1/4 to 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

- 1/8 tsp ground nutmeg (optional)

- 1/4 tsp ground cumin (optional)

- 1/6 cup unsalted butter, cut up, and chilled

- 1/4 cup fresh or frozen chives

- 5 ounces (110g) feta, crumbled

- 1/2 cup buttermilk, plus one tbsp for brushing (or milk with 1/2 tbsp lemon juice)

Instructions: 

Preheat oven to 400°F (205° Celsius). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. 

Whisk together the dry ingredients. Using your fingertips, mix the cut up butter until you obtain something that resembles a coarse meal. Stir in the chives, throw in the feta and the buttermilk. Stir with a fork until a sticky dough forms. 

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for 30 seconds. 

Flatten into a circle. 

Cut 8 pieces with a large knife.

Brush with the remaining buttermilk, using a pastry brush. 

Place wedges on the baking sheet, leaving at least half an inch between each wedge.

Bake for 20 minutes or until golden on top. 

Cool on a rack. 

Food Friday: Giada's Chocolate Tiramisu

I received a copy of Giada De Laurentiis' cookbook Everyday Italian for Christmas, and finally got the courage to try one of the recipes. I recently started liking tiramisu, despite countless trips to Italy where I avoided it like the plague, and her recipe appealed to me. One of my mother's friend is a former Italian teacher who always brings the yummiest tiramisu to get togethers, so I thought I'd give it a try and give her a run for her money. No, I only really wanted to give it a try. it wasn't as tasty as her recipe. Blame it on me, not Giada; the woman's nearly perfect.  

I realized I didn't have all the ingredients needed to make it, so I adapted it accordingly. I didn't use Marsala in the chocolate zabaglione, but added only a single tablespoon of rum because I have no idea how to cook with liquor. It's a skill I've yet to acquire. I used crème fraiche instead of whipping cream, and didn't leave the zabaglione in the fridge for 8 hours because I was too impatient to wait that long. 

My advice is to make the zabaglione first and refrigerate for two hours. During the last 15 minutes, you can prepare the rest of the tiramisu. Make sure to leave in the fridge for at least two hours before serving. Giada recommends to make it the day before, if possible. 

Chocolate Tiramisu, a la Giada de Laurentiis (from Everyday Italian). 

Ingredients for the zabaglione: 

- 1/4 cup dark chocolate

- 1/8 cup crème fraiche or whipping cream

- 1/3 cup sugar

- 1 tablespoon dark rum

- 4 egg yolks

- a pinch of salt

Ingredients for the tiramisu: 

- 30-36 finger cookies

- 7 espresso shots

- 1 cup + 1 tbs crème fraiche or whipping cream

- chocolate zabaglione

- 1/3 cup sugar

- 4 ounce mascarpone (half a tub here)

- unsweetened cocoa powder 

Instructions for the zabaglione: 

In a small saucepan, bring the crème fraiche to a boil. Remove from the heat and add dark chocolate and mix until fully combined and smooth. Set aside, but keep warm. 

Fill a large saucepan with two inches of water and bring to a simmer. In a bowl that fits in the saucepan without touching the bottom, whisk together the sugar, rum, egg yolks and salt until combined. 

Place the bowl over the saucepan, and whisk constantly until the mixture is thick and creamy (about 5-6 minutes in my case). Remove from the heat. 

Fold the chocolate and cream into the sugar and egg mixture using a rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours. 

Instructions for the tiramisu: 

In a large bowl, stir the mascarpone for a few seconds but do not stir too much. 

In a medium bowl, beat the crème fraiche and half of the sugar with an electric mixer for a couple of minutes. Giada says: "until peaks form" but I don't know what she means, so I mixed until it looked like waves were crashing unto each other. 

Fold the crème fraiche mixture into the mascarpone and add the zabaglione. Cover and refrigerate. 

Line a pan* with plastic wrap and make sure to cover the edges of the pan. 

In a medium bowl, mix the espresso and the second half of the sugar. 

Dip one cookie at a time in the espresso mix and arrange in the pan**. Place in a single layer, and pour half of the chocolate mixture on top of the cookies. 

Dip and repeat for the second layer.  

Add a final layer of cookies then cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate for anywhere from 2 hours to a day.

Unwrap the plastic, put a large platter over the pan and turn over. Remove the plastic, sift some cocoa to cover it and serve. 

Notes: 
*I used a casserole dish, but Giada recommends a 9 1/4 x 5 x 2 3/4 loaf pan. 

**That's where, if I'd been smart, I would have changed pans and used a narrower pan to put just one cookie across the pan.  

Food Friday: Spinach, Arugula & Mâche Pesto

Tonight, I decided to use up as much of the salad we'd bought last Sunday for our 18 guests. We had plenty of leftovers, and two kinds of salad greens (spinach and mâche), plus some arugula, so I thought I could make some pesto. The leaves we had were a sad bunch, so today was absolutely the last day I could use them for anything. I had to throw out a lot of wilted leaves, and didn't find enough baby spinach to make my usual spinach pesto. The plan, originally, was to use 3/4 spinach, 1/4 mâche, but it turns out that I had way more edible mâche than spinach, so to counterbalance a somewhat bland taste, I had to use some arugula too. 

Mâche is a very popular salad in France. For those of you who've never seen it at your farmer's market, NPR did a story on it a few years ago. If you can't find it, just use half arugula, half baby spinach. 

Baby Spinach, Arugula & Mâche Pesto

Ingredients:


- 2 cups mâche
- 1 cup baby spinach
- 2 cups arugula
- 15-20 basil leaves
- 1/3 cup olive oil (more if mixture is too thick)
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 2 tbs pine nuts or walnuts
- 1/3 cup parmesan, cut up into pieces, or grated
- a pinch of sea salt (I used fleur de sel)
- pepper to taste

Instructions: 


Throw the mâche, spinach, arugula and basil into food processor. 

Add olive oil and nuts. 

Chop up garlic and parmesan. Add to the mixture. 

Add salt and pepper into food processor.

Mix until well combined. 

If it's too bland, add more garlic and pepper. Or grate a small part of a lemon zest like I did. Mix again, chill and serve on pasta, or bread. It tastes pretty good on my thyme crackers too. 

Why is pesto so hard to photograph?

Food Friday: Vegetarian Paella

Before I became a non fish-eating vegetarian 8 years ago, I loved seafood. Really really loved it. My dad used to cook salmon, mussels and other types of seafood for me. When we went to Spain, I always had paella. And since we often went to Spain because my mom is a Spanish teacher, I've had real paella a bunch of times. I didn't think there was a way I could make a vegetarian version of paella, until I stumbled upon this recipe a couple of months ago. Of course, it's not the real thing, but there are dishes that we vegetarians miss sometimes, and we just like to recreate them without the meat and seafood. 

This was my second time making this paella, and it just wasn't as tasty as the first time, though it was still very good. Maybe I cooked the rice too long, or ground saffron wasn't the way to go, or my vegetables weren't up to par. Next time, I'll use regular tomatoes, not cherry tomatoes, as well as saffron threads, and maybe a green bell pepper. 

Vegetarian paella (adapted from this recipe)
Serves 2. 

Ingredients:

• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 large onion, chopped (I sliced it; not something I'd recommend)
• 1 small bell pepper (mine was an orange pepper, red or green is better)
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup paella rice
• 3/4 cup vegetable broth
• 1/2-1 teaspoon ground saffron (or a few saffron threads)
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme leaves
• 1 cup tomatoes (I used cherry tomatoes)
• 3/4 cup frozen green peas
• a dozen pimiento stuffed green olives (mine weren't stuffed)
• 2 1/2 tablespoon flat leaf parsley, chopped
• ground pepper to taste
• 7 small artichoke hearts, chopped

Instructions: 

Cook rice for half the time recommended on the package. Set aside. 

Meanwhile, chop up the vegetables. Hopefully, your vegetables are tastier than mine. 

Heat the olive oil over medium high heat in a large frying pan, or paella pan if you have one. I had one, but used the wrong pan. Typical. 

Add the chopped onion, bell pepper and garlic and sauté for approximately 5 minutes. 

Add the rice, broth, saffron and thyme. 

Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes. 

Add chopped tomato, green peas, olives, 1 1/2 tablespoons parsley, black pepper and artichoke hearts. 

Cook until rice is tender, or approximately 2-3 minutes. 

Garnish with the rest of the parsley before serving. 

Food Friday: Tarte au chocolat et à la crème de marron

I bought a rectangular tart pie on Wednesday and wanted to use it. All week, I tried to come up with a recipe to use it. I considered making a savory tart, but I realized I didn't have enough ingredients for a vegetable tart (no tomatoes, or zucchinis, or even arugula). I had bought chestnut spread (crème de marron) and had plenty of dark chocolate in the fridge, so I tried to find a recipe using both, and ended up finding inspiration but no recipe I had time to make. I decided to make a two layer tart, with chestnut spread on the bottom and a chocolate and crème fraîche mix on top. I used my mother's crust recipe, but added some ground pecans to the dough to give it a more flaky texture and a better flavor. 

I braced for a complete disaster because baking is more of a science than an art and you can't just make it up as you go along, but I guess having read so many recipes in my life that I sort of knew what I was doing. Maybe the temperature was off, I probably could have cooked the chocolate and crème fraîche spread differently, but all in all, it turned out to be a pretty tasty tart.  

Chocolate and chestnut spread tart.

Ingredients:

• 20 or so pecans
• 2 cups (250g) all purpose flour
• 1 stick (125g) unsalted butter, cut up and at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup lukewarm water
• 7 fl ounces heavy cream, crème fraîche or whipping cream
• teaspoon cinnamon
• 7 ounces (200g) dark baking chocolate
• one small can chestnut spread
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions:

Roast pecans in the oven for about 5 minutes. Let cool. 

Grind the pecans in a food processor and put them in a small bowl. 

In the processor, mix together the flour, butter, egg, water and ground pecans. 

Flour some cling wrap and place the ball of dough on top of it. Set aside but do not chill in the fridge. 

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (175° Celsius).

Roll out the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Grease and flour a pan and put the dough in the pan. I used a large rectangular one and had plenty of dough left over. You could make individual tarts too. I only had one small square pan, but if I had had a few more, I probably would have made a bunch of tartlets instead. 

 

Spread a layer of crème de marron directly onto the crust. 
In a medium sized pan, cook the cream on medium heat until it starts to boil. Add cinnamon. Set aside and add the chocolate and vanilla. Mix until fully combined. Set aside for a few minutes. 

Pour the chocolate mixture into the pan on top of the chestnut spread. 

Bake for 35-45 minutes. 

Chill until settled, or approximately two hours. 

Food Friday: Thyme & Peppercorn crackers

At the grocery store on Wednesday, I spotted a box of thyme and pepper crackers, and thought "that's my next recipe!". I looked up a recipe and stumbled upon one adapted from a Barefoot Contessa recipe. I adapted it a little more: I added lemon & peppercorns, used less parmesan and more thyme. I found that I'd used too much pepper and not enough thyme. If I had to do it differently, I would make it earlier when I didn't have to use artificial light and I would put fewer peppercorns in. 

Thyme, peppercorn & lemon crackers. 

Ingredients: 

• 1 stick unsalted butter
• 2 tsp grated Parmesan
• 1 1/4 cups plain flour
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
• 1 tsp mixed peppercorns
• 2 1/2 tablespoons water
• zest of one lemon, chopped or grated

Instructions: 

In a bowl, mix butter until creamy.

Add parmesan, flour, salt, water, thyme, peppercorns and lemon zest, and mix on lowest speed. 

I used 2 teaspoons peppercorns and I'm not recommending it. Use less. I used almost 2 teaspoons thyme, but I would recommend using 3. 

On floured surface, take the mixture from the bowl and shape into a log. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Remove the dough from the fridge and place onto floured surface. Cut into thin slices. 

Place the crackers on parchment paper on cookie sheet and bake until lightly golden (20 minutes or so). 

I had one with a little homemade spinach pesto and that was a tasty combination.