Tomato Tart Redeux. (This time we have a winner!)

All those summer cocktails have me a bit flushed so I thought I would share a light lunch or dinner recipe that uses up any of those beefy, homegrown tomatoes you might have sitting around. I wasn't very happy with my last try at a tomato tart. Oh sure, it fit the bill. It was a tart. It had tomatoes. They looked great and I got to use those tiny tart pans that have been in my cabinet forever. They just didn't have that certain special quality I was after. Well, I think I found it:

Like so many of "my" recipes, this one was Ina's first so you can get the recipe over at The Food Network. I made these exactly to her recipe save for using freeze dried basil. (It was the first time all summer I had none on hand!) If you plan on making these my suggestion would be to make the onions in advance as to do these correct you have to saute the onions as onions are made to be sauteed: slowly! Also, if you are smart, you will make extra onions as thyme'd onions are great used in salads, omelets, and a lot more although I just used the extra onions to make more of these the next day. If it weren't for cooking down the onions these things would take no time at all.

Some photos of the whole operation:

Blogophrenia.

When I set up this blog, I also set up a blog for my office CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) project. While it isn't that much harder to set up two blogs than it is to set up one blog, it is MUCH harder to contribute to two blogs than it is to one! One Box a Week was getting all my cooking posts so if you were only looking at this blog you would probably think I'm an alcoholic since only cocktail recipes seemed to end up here. I assure you that isn't the case and while I do appreciate a good summer cocktail, there is a lot more I wish to blog about! Realizing this, I've decided to recommit myself to this blog and let the office blog take a back seat for the time being. I'll probably just cross post any CSA related items over there to keep it easy.

I'm still not sure where this will take us or what the eventual direction of this blog will be but I do know that there will be a lot more food to go with all that alcohol!

What is That? A French Breakfast Radish!

Another new item in the box this week: The French Breakfast Radish. How did I know that you might ask? My friend Cindy blogged about them not that long ago and how she had made Bon Appetit's Green Bean Salad with Radishes and Prosciutto.

I will definitely be making this before the weekend! I don't know if I'll get the ricotta salata as I have a lot of feta on hand. (Always.) Whole Foods is so close thought so I might break down and get it.

Cooking for This Week

When you saw that last post were you wondering what he made with dandelion greens and ice berg lettuce? I'm in a good groove now with what has been coming in the rest of the box. This week I made more pesto and froze my mint according to Gillian's instructions.

Lettuce Wraps!


I always love the wraps at that branded Asian food store. They serve them as an appetizer but I prefer them as my complete dinner. Turned out they were the perfect dish to 'absorb' my dandelion greens as I don't really like the 'scrubbier' greens for salads as they get a bit bitter. But sliced up they make a good counter to the sweeter sesame oils and hoisin sauce in lettuce wraps.

Ice berg lettuce leaves
1 lb ground beef
1 TBS olive oil for frying
1 large onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves
2 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS hoisin sauce
2 TBS rice vinegar
Asian chili pepper sauce to taste. (I put in 3 TBS and that was good for me.)
1 can water chestnuts (drained and chopped)
1 bunch green onions chopped (reserving some chopped greens for garnish)
1/2 bunch dandelion greens
2 TBS dark sesame oil.

Heat a medium skillet to high heat, add 1 tbs oil and brown ground beef. Break into small pieces and when completely cooked through, remove from heat and sit aside to drain on paper towels. While the meat is cooling, add the onions to the pan and stir for 1 minute to begin cooking. Add garlic, soy sauce, hoisin sauce, vinegar and chili pepper sauce to the onions. Stir to mix well. Add water chestnuts, green onions and sesame oil. Stir in chopped dandelion greens. When all is heated through add sauce to ground beef and mix well in bowl. Garnish bowl with reserved green onion and let your guests make their own wraps using the lettuce cups.

Don't have dandelion greens? I don't blame you. Sub in anything you want. Shredded carrot would work well too!

Make Sauce!

Tonight is CSA Basket Eve and there were a LOT of tomatoes, basil. mushrooms and other assorted veggies in the crisper that didn't get used this week. Tomorrow another CSA box will be delivered so I had to do something. With the house to myself for a few hours the evening was all clear to make sauce! Actualy two sauces...there was lots to work with in the crisper and my brother gave me a ton of oven dried tomatoes from his garden! First up was tomato pesto:

Adapted from Cook's Illustrated:

1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted
12 oz cherry tomatoes
1/2 packed fresh basil
1 medium garlic clove, minced
1 small peperoncini, minced
salt
pinch red pepper flakes
1/2 extra virgin olive oil.
1/2 cup parmesan cheese
1/2 cup oven dried tomatoes (substitute reconstituted sun dried or oil packed sundried.)

Process all ingredients except cheese and olive oil for one minute until smooth, about one minute. Add olive oil in steady stream. Finish by lightly processing cheese. I was after a richer flavor and remembered my brothers oven dried tomatoes so I processed those in as well along with an extra handful of basil. This pesto will be good whipped into a nice creamy pasta sauce later or spread on crusty french bread. In the meantime, it goes into the freezer!

Next up, an old fashioned red sauce recipe from Julia Child that I found on the net. It is not your modern style at all but very easy and worth the extra simmering time. This recipe tastes just like the spaghetti sauce my mother used to make. In fact, I'll have to find hers to see if she actually got hers from Julia. Red sauces are very receptive to any 'extras' you have unused in the crisper and this one took the 4 remaining tomatoes that weren't going to make it another day.


Everything in the pot then simmer for at least two hours:

And look what you get!
This goes into freezer containers as well and will be used as a pasta sauce, chicken simmer sauce, and with a few extra herbs, pizza sauce this weekend. Crisper empty and ready for tomorrow!