Tart-zza Anyone?

We had some friends visit with us and they left us a delightful tart pan (like this).  They also made a spectacular almond peach tart for us, with a cookie-dough like crust, and that got me thinking, when my brain wouldn't shut down as I was trying to get back to sleep this morning at 5 am, maybe I can do something savoury with that?

I've got a short crust recipe that I've used before for a meat pie, and wondered if I could jury-rig something using that to create a sort of tart-pizza crossover.  On top of that, I had to make it wheat free (and I've never really liked the pizza dough recipes without wheat I've tried thus far), no tomato paste, no basil... hmmm.  Well, it worked pretty well!

The crust recipe is:

1 lb of all-purpose flour or whatever you use for flour alternative (I did roughly 1/3 tapioca starch and 2/3 teff flour for this)

1 1/4 cup boiling water

4 tbsp butter

9 tbsp shortening or lard (I used bacon fat)

Boil the water & melt the fats in it, then gradually blend into the flour until it makes a dough.  Work the dough until it's well combined, then press into the tart pan (or two... depending on how big the pan is).  Bake at 375 for about 15-20 minutes until shrunken from the edges somewhat and tart shell is mostly cooked in the middle.

The parsley pesto was made with probably about 2 cups densely packed parsley, finely chopped, 2-3 tbsp of olive oil, romano cheese to taste, and about 2-3 tbsp pine nuts, ground.

Spread  pesto on the baked shell, then layer on the goodies.  I used ham, havarti & a few slices of our garden tomatoes.

Bake at 400F for about 10 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the tomatoes are a little cooked.  All in all, a great success - we might be able to do pizza night on a regular basis now!

So Much to Tell

We have been very busy in the garden & kitchen during 2011, I just haven't had a chance to share with everyone.  In quick summary:

• Despite the extremely slow start to the season and depressingly cool summer, we had a surprisingly bountiful harvest from our garden, especially potatoes, dried beans, squash, and tomatoes.  Once again, we figured we would have no tomatillos and ended up with a bumper crop (although they didn't ripen very well, and as a result didn't store very well at all).  Even our peppers did really well this year, and we smoked our Guajillo chillies in our new Bradley Smoker!  They are fabulous in soups, stews and sauces, with just a little bite and a lovely smoky flavour to enhance anything they're tossed into.  We also tried dehydrated tomatoes and had enough of our Red Ruffle bell peppers to dry again this year, which I've been adding to just about all of my savoury recipes.
• We have our first livestock!  In July, we picked up 9 young Muskovy ducks: 3 drakes and 6 ducks.  They've been enjoying our orchard & field, and keeping the weeds cropped beautifully.  Plus, they really got into slug duty this summer, so we're enthusiastically looking forward to their slugging abilities this coming spring.  They started to lay in late November, and Dave's been collecting about 3-5 eggs every day since then.  We'll be letting them raise their babies in the spring, in the hopes that we can have duck meat to make into confit, casssoulet, ham, sausage, and just duck!

 

• We participated in a Community Supported Fishery through the Michelle Rose in Cowichan Bay.  As a result, we had about 11 pounds of king shrimp and spot prawns, and a little less than 10 pounds of sockeye and pink filets.  We christened the Bradley by cold-smoking some sockeye, and I made my first batch of gravlax.  The seafood (including the smoked salmon) has made it into a few chowders with our root veggies (rutabaga, potato, parsnip, leeks & onions), smoked guajillo & dehydrated ruffle peppers, home-made chicken stock, our grilled corn nibblets and coconut milk finish - totally yum.
• We had our first "feast of the fields" equivalent - we hosted a mid-winter feast with our friends, and dined on the gravlax with home-made butter (sigh, not yet with our own cream) on home-grown home-made rye bread, spicy pumpkin soup, espresso-braised venison, rutabaga potato gratin, and pumpkin pie, accompanied with home-made apple plum wine.  It was fabulous, and we're looking forward to repeating this new tradition annually (maybe even semi-annually with a summer feast, too!). 
• In dealing with eliminating eggs, wheat & dairy (and now corn & rice for the foreseeable future) due to Kate's eczema, I've been exploring baking with allergy-friendly alternatives.  I purchased allergyfreemom.com's recipe book and have made quite a few of her recipes very successfully.  I recommend trying the cinnamon rolls (they're weird to make but really, really tasty) and the gingerbread cookies (even if it's no longer Christmas).  I used sorghum flour in both to great success.     There are also some great recipes on Bob's Red Mill site.  I'm also now trying to eat a lot more veggies, especially greens (check out the TedX presentation by Terry Wahls), and have discovered that I actually love kale chips (go figure)!  I've also invested in some super food stuff via recipes from Meghan Telpner's Making Love in the Kitchen blog.  After enjoying the Tumeric Tea (actually more like spicy chai tea with tumeric added) and Raw Chocolate Bark yesterday, I am definitely looking forward to some more experimentation in this department.

Since I can't seem to keep up with what I'm doing in the kitchen, you can always have a look at my SpringPad site to see what recipes I'm collecting and trying out.

I'm sure there's been more activity - of course there has, Kate's now 18 months and there's been a year's worth full of development and exploration in that department.  The addition is now mostly complete, certainly Mom has been living there since about May, and really enjoying it.  We're now turning our thoughts towards getting Dave a shop built, so that he can get back into making his beautiful furniture.

What's Eating You (or rather the other way around...)

Thanks to minouette for this - sounds like fun so here goes:

1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating.

1. Venison - kind of hard not to when we hunt & eat what we hunt ;)
2. Nettle Tea - does nettle beer count?
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare - but am not keen to repeat it; it was a Japanese version.
5. Crocodile/alligator - yup, in Queensland
6. Black pudding - Dave has and loves it. I think I'll avoid it but wouldn't put it in the strikeout list.
7. Cheese fondue - thanks Elizabeth, especially for serving with new fingerling potatoes, yummy!
8. Carp
9. Borscht - having had an unfortunate, life-altering experience with beets at a very young age, I can't even get past the smell to get anything beet-related into my mouth
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich - love it but can't eat it any more; no more peanuts for me.
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart - is there any other kind?
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffles
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes - Practically anything alcoholic we drink in our household is fruit wine we've made not from grapes: apples, pears, blackberries, raspberries, plums, rhubarb (not really a fruit, though), while we don't make it yet, blueberries too.
19. Steamed pork buns - unless you're religion prevents this, how can you not?
20. Pistachio ice cream - allergy
21. Heirloom tomatoes - Um, yeah. See also here and here.
22. Fresh wild berries - Definitely. Leetle teeny tiny ground-covering blueberries in the Cariboo are our current favourites; next to impossible to find, and getting more than a mouthful is a challenge, but so much flavour. Also try this lovely pie filling version for wild huckleberries.
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans - staple. With salsa, of course!
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche - I hope that gelato form counts?
28. Oysters - thought this one would be a strikeout if you'd asked about a year ago, but I've since been converted, at least to the deep fried variety.
29. Baklava - while everyone in my family adores it, I'm allergic (dratted nut allergy)
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder - Manhattan & New England, and all sorts of other seafood chowder combos
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut - ugh. Cabbage.
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac
37. Clotted cream
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail - never again. So sick of ox tail stew from childhood experience. Ugh.
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects - probably have without knowing it, so won't eliminate it from the running
43. Phaal - not likely; not a huge curry fanatic
44. Goat's milk - not again if I can avoid it
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more - mmmmm
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin - not again if I can avoid it.
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi - not again if I can avoid it.
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini - don't like gin & don't like martini's
58. Beer above 8% - "I live in Canada" - ditto
59. Poutine - "I live in Canada" - ditto
60. Carob chips - rather a shock as a kid; don't want to repeat it.
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin - not on purpose, but it's probably in something I've eaten.
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake - "They should add beaver tails to this list" yeah, and whales' tails
68. Haggis - hopefully, I'll never repeat that event. Ugh.
69. Fried plantain - also barbequed / deep fried bananas are great, too.
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette - I think so?
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill - Probably wouldn't.
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie - the things you try as a kid!
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong - love it.
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict - hate hollandaise.
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare - well, rabbit - does it make a difference?
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse - not knowingly, but I did have non-duck "duck" in France, so maybe it was horse?
90. Criollo chocolate - maybe?
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor - don't like lobster
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake