Zucchini!

There are few things I love as much as fresh zucchini. Isn't it odd, then, that I should be the only person in the known world who isn't completely inundated with squash this time of year. I've heard all the jokes about keeping one's doors locked lest someone sneak in zucchini--and I want to be the victim of such a crime. I'm good at growing the plants--they are always lush and gorgeous and covered with blooms which, sadly, produce very little.

I've been hoping for a bumper crop as I read other blogs so that I might try making these or this or even this. But what I'd really been waiting for was to make another zucchini-feta tart.

I have a subscription to Saveur magazine and I admit to feeling rather sheepish about it given the number of ads for luxury vehicles and fancy vacations that fill the pages. But once you move past all the eye candy for the well off, the articles are engaging and informative and I have a found a number of recipes which have become standards in my kitchen. Last May, the cover featured a photo of a zucchini-feta tart which looked absolutely heavenly.

I love anything with feta, especially the Pastures of Eden feta which is shipped (I know, I know, using lots of fossil fuels) from Israel to my local Trader Joe's where I snap it up in alarming quantities. But really, it's the best. And then there's the tart's base--who doesn't love puff pastry? And Trader Joe's now carries an all butter, non-hydrogenated variety which I had waiting in my freezer for just such a dish.

The combination of the slightly sweet, light-as-a-feather pastry with the creamy cheese and bright zucchini is brilliant. This is a bit of a fiddly dish what with salting some of the zucchini and blanching the rest, and the pastry does require a bit of pre-baking. But every step is worth it, I promise you. The finished tart is good warm, cool, or cold and is quite pretty as well so it would make a lovely addition to a party table.

The recipe is here. I ended up having too few zucchini in my garden to make this all from homegrown but it was delicious nonetheless.

Ratatouille and a Fruit Tart

Did you see the movie? I loved it--the darling French rat with gourmet dreams was absolutely charming. Technically, the movie was brilliant, and the story was great. But....what was with the signature dish? Ratatouille all tarted up to look sleek and elegant? I'm sorry, but I don't think so. On the other hand, I don't like it all slopped together, either, so it comes out like a lumpy pizza sauce. I've had some lousy ratatouille in my time and really what I like best is my own which is based on a recipe by the ever fabulous Deborah Madison who always seems to know when to simplify and when it's really worth the fuss. Despite being not terribly photogenic, this dish is worth the fuss.

We hit the farmers market today and came home with all the necessary ingredients: eggplant, zucchini, peppers, and tomatoes, all of which were gorgeous. At home I began the slicing, salting, and sauteeing. It's a long process, but sauteeing each vegetable separately in olive oil and then baking them together gently is what makes the dish so delicious, especially topped with reduced pan juices for extra flavor. We'll eat it served with polenta, fresh bread, and locally made goat cheese.

All the fresh fruit at the market was calling out to me and I was inspired to make a simple fruit tart for dessert. It's an old family recipe: a simple, buttery dough topped with summer fruit to which I've added one small (but delicious) flourish. I know my great grandmother would certainly have approved of the thin layer of barely sweetened cream cheese I added between the fruit and the dough.

Not Much Cooking

All those lofty goals about using this blog to focus attention on my need to cook more and eat better? Unfortunately, it hasn't been working. I've made a few things here and there but have mostly been subsisting on kefir and quesadillas and smoothies. And the $2.25 Asian vegetable sandwich at Best Baguette, my new all time favorite takeout place. Crispy baguettes, savory tofu, and pickled veggies--absolutely perfect and an unbeatable price!

I usually try to make an effort on Fridays for our Shabbat dinner. I recently got my hands on a library copy of The Simple Art of Perfect Baking after coming across a reference to it here. It's full of lovely looking things but my first experience was not at all positive. Some of the mistakes were mine and some of it was the confusing recipe, but I'd hoped the lemon tart with blueberries would be considerably more interesting than it turned out to be.

My plan was to double the recipe and make a full sized tart as well as a few dozen tartlettes (tartitos? tartini? tartichki?) to bring to a luncheon Saturday morning. I had trouble with the crust, trouble with the filling, I forgot ingredients, you name it, I found a way to mess up. In the end they were fairly tasty but hardly worth all the hoo-ha.

The cookbook is definitely on the fussy side for my level of baking but I'm going to hang on to it until summer. There's a peach cake made with a brown sugar genoise that sounds like heaven to me.