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Astonishing (Tomato Tart)

Sometimes astonishing things happen.

The chocolate chips and hazelnuts are even better in your oatmeal cookies than you imagined they'd be. (That's 1 cup chocolate chips, ½ cup chopped raw hazelnuts, if you'd like to try it at home, and I recommend you do. You may never buy a Pepperidge Farm cookie again.)

An old friend you'd written off calls out of the blue to say she's in the area and can she stop by for 20 minutes.

A new(ish) friend says something really lovely about you about you for no reason.

You out your blog on your facebook page and no one points at you and shouts “You're one of those blog blogging blogger people? Why on earth would anyone read that?”

Your blog stats tell you that you have a reader in Canada even though you don't know anyone in Canada. (Seriously, neighbor to the North, please say hello, because I love you the most of all of my anonymous readers.)

So in honor of astonishing things, I give you a picture-less, but astonishingly good recipe which, unfortunately you may have to wait a year to try, because it requires you to have wonderful, ripe, flavorful cherry or grape tomatoes and the season is almost gone. (Unless you are in the Southern Hemisphere, which would be a real shock to my blog stats.) Making this astonishingly good recipe with grocery store tomatoes will only end in disappointment.

What is this astonishingly good recipe? Tomato cheese tart and it's super simple. (Astonishing!)

Do you remember my Clean out the crisper tart? The one with the elegant Clothilde's easy olive oil whole wheat crust. Second verse, same as the first (almost:)

Olive Oil Whole Wheat Crust made with freshly ground black pepper instead of dried herbs.
5 ounces chevre
1 pint wonderful cherry or grape tomatoes
1 teaspoon coarse salt
bunch fresh basil

Make the crust. I used a pie plate, which wasn't quite right. I should have gone rustic (or I might have to get myself a proper tart pan to make pretty tarts.)

While the crust is chilling, remove the chevre from the refrigerator to soften.

Halve the tomatoes and mix with salt. Place tomatoes in a strainer and allow to drain.

Preheat your oven to 400 Fahrenheit

After the crust has chilled for at least half an hour, remove it from the refrigerator and spread the chevre on the bottom. Then spread the tomatoes over the goat cheese. Bake for 20-25 minutes until the crust is just crisp.

While the tart is baking chiffonade your basil, then sprinkle it over top of the tart just after you remove it from the oven.
So good.

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Comments

  1. Justine LSeptember 13, 2010 at 10:16 PM

    Somehow, I completely missed that this was *your* blog! Huzzah! Now I'm catching up. But we still have grape tomatoes here ... and a bevy of the regular ones, too. I'm waffling between tart and soup for the end of the week ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. MaudSeptember 14, 2010 at 3:55 PM

    If, say, you didn't like goat cheese, what would you recommend for a substitute? Cream cheese? Ricotta? Fresh mozz? Something else?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jennifer ThorsonSeptember 14, 2010 at 4:10 PM

    (Not) Maud, think ricotta would work beautifully. Mozzarella pairs well with tomatoes, of course, but would produce a slightly different wonderful thing. If I were going with mozzarella I might try to find some nice slicing tomatoes and alternate thin slices of mozz with the tomatoes to make a pretty pattern. And of course still the basil on top.

    ReplyDelete

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