Rustic Tomato and Cheese Tart

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This tart is a twist on the traditional tomato pie.  It's a wonderful combo of two classic southern favorites, biscuits and tomato pie. In place of the traditional pastry crust, buttermilk biscuits make up the crust of this free form tart. It's everything you love about both dishes in one amazing tart! 

Really ripe summer tomatoes are what make this tart so fantastic. Heirloom variety tomatoes are the perfect tomato for this tart but any just picked tomatoes from your local farmers market will do!

This tart is perfect for a brunch or lunch. Just serve it with a green salad for a complete summertime meal!

Biscuits, hot and fresh...anytime!

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I feel compelled to add a warning to proceed with caution to this post. I will just remind you that I am merely providing recipes and ideas here on Half Baked. What happens after that is out of my control. I cannot help that these delicious biscuits are super easy to make, and if you freeze them, you can have a hot and fresh biscuit, anytime you want one. (Kinda like Krispy Kreme when the sign is on.) Consider yourself warned, I'm no longer responsible!  

Here in the South, we love a good biscuit but I rarely make them. As much as I enjoy biscuits, most recipes make about a dozen or so. Even if I half the recipe, there are still at least six biscuits. I'm not saying that Hubs and I couldn't eat all, well most, ok probably all six. Don't judge, hot biscuits and butter are hard to resist. However, after a few dinners like that and I'd have to start hunting for a tent maker to buy clothes that fit! True we could exercise a little self control (who am I kidding!) and only eat one each but what would we do with the four biscuits that are leftover? Biscuits, hot out of the oven are amazing, crunchy outside, soft flaky and buttery inside, just heavenly.  A leftover biscuit on the other hand is nothing like that. Not even close. They're more like hockey pucks after spending the night in the fridge. So I had resigned to not making biscuits unless we had guests to help eat them. Well all that has changed! These biscuits can be made, frozen, and baked up a couple at a time, whenever we feel the need for a hot flaky biscuit! Okay, so I may still need find a that tent maker if I'm not careful, which is why I cautioned you at the beginning of this post. Please bake responsibly....

Make and Freeze Biscuits
Source: King Arthur Flour
Yields: about 12-16 biscuits

Ingredients:
4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or Perfect Pastry Blend
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
8 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 1/4- 1 1/2 cups of cold milk

Method:
In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Drop the butter into the bowl and cut it into the flour with a pastry cutter, two knives, or your finger tips.Work in the butter until the mixture is crumbly; some larger, pea-sized pieces of butter may remain intact.

Pea-sized pieces of butter!

Add 1 1/4 cups of cold milk and mix together (I like to use a fork). If the mixture seems too dry add the other 1/4 cup of milk (I almost always need it). Gather the dough into a ball and transfer it to a lightly floured work surface and fold it over once or twice. Pat it into a 3/4 - 1 inch thick square, rectangle, or circle. Cut out with a round cutter, re-rolling the the leftover pieces of dough until you've used up all the dough.
OR, if you don't mind a square biscuit, you could use my new favorite method for cutting out these biscuits (also from the King Arthur website). It's awesome. I can't believe I never thought of this:

Pat the dough evenly into an 8 inch square pan.

Flip it out on your work surface.

Slice....how cool is that? 

So much easier than cutting them out with a cutter!

Place the cut biscuits on a baking sheet. Now, you have a choice to make here: bake the biscuits right away; or freeze, bag, and bake at a later date, or freeze some and bake some...you get the idea!

To bake biscuits right away, heat oven to 475 degrees. Brush the tops of the biscuits with milk or melted butter. Bake them for 5 minutes, then turn off the oven. Leave in the oven for an additional 5 to 10 minutes, until they’re golden brown.

To freeze, leave the biscuits on the baking sheet, wrap with plastic wrap and slid them into the freezer for at least an hour, or until the biscuits have frozen. Once they’re frozen, remove from the freezer, bag airtight, and store in the freezer for up to about 3 months. (Who am I kidding, there's no way those biscuits will be around that long!)

Beautiful frozen biscuits, just 15 minutes from biscuit heaven...anytime!

When ready to serve, preheat your oven to 475°F, and bake biscuits for 8 minutes. Turn the heat off, and leave in the oven for another 5 to 8 minutes, till they're golden brown.

You know you want one!

Any excuse to make biscuits

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Here in the South biscuits are like sweet tea, they're everywhere. Not that that's a bad thing. I adore a good biscuit. There's nothing better than a hot from the oven, flaky, buttery biscuit. Slather it with some jam or top with fresh ham, either way I could eat my weight in them. Now that's a bad thing, so I don't make them very often. I usually wait to make them until I have a good excuse. Yesterday, I got the perfect biscuit making excuse. My neighbor just came home from the hospital after giving birth to a beautiful baby girl and I had offered to bring by dinner. A celebratory batch of biscuits was definitely called for! I can't help it that there just happened to be a few leftover for me and Hubs.

I like Dori Greenspan's recipe for basic biscuits. It's a quick simple recipe that can be thrown together in a couple of minutes. It's a very versatile recipe. Feel free to throw in some chopped chives, or top with grated Parmesan cheese or whatever you had on hand.

These biscuits are fairly simple to make, but you do need to use a light hand in mixing them so you don't lose the flaky texture.

Basic Biscuits

Baking: From My Home to Yours
Yield: 6 3-1/2 inch diameter biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour (or 1 3/4 cps all-purpose flour and 1/3 cup cake flour)~I used King Arthur Bread flour~
1 tablespoon baking powder
2 teaspoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 stick (6 tablespoons) cold unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces
3/4 cup whole milk
Preparation

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Get out a sharp 2-inch diameter biscuit cutter, and line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat. I used a 3.5 inch metal drinking glass, which is supposedly a big no-no in biscuit baking, but I had no problems.

Whisk the flour(s), baking powder, sugar and salt together in a bowl. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips (my favorite method) or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly. You’ll have pea-size pieces, pieces the size of oatmeal flakes, and pieces the size of everything in between, and that’s just right.

Pour the milk over the dry ingredients, grab a fork and toss and gently turn the ingredients until you’ve got a nice soft dough. Now reach into the bowl with your hands and give the dough a quick, gentle kneading-3 or 4 turns should be just enough to bring everything together.

Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Dust the top of the dough very lightly with flour and pat the dough out with your hands or roll it with a pin until it is about 1/2 inch high. Don’t worry if the dough isn’t completely even-a quick, light touch is more important than accuracy.

Use the biscuit cutter to cut out as many biscuits as you can. Try to cut the biscuits close to one another so you get the most you can out of this first round. By hand or with a small spatula, transfer the biscuits to the baking sheet. Gather together the scraps, working them as little as possible, pat out to a 1/2 inch thickness and cut as many additional biscuits as you can; transfer these to the sheet. (The biscuits can be made to this point and frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight and kept for up to 2 months. Bake without defrosting-just add a couple more minutes to the oven time.)

Bake the biscuits for 14 to 18 minutes, or until they are puffed and golden brown. Transfer them to a serving basket.