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!

Don't even think about turning the oven on!

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Most of the country has been hit with triple digit temps for the last couple of weeks. In places like Minnesota and Wisconsin, it's called an epic heatwave. Here in the deep South, we just call it summer. We rarely make it through a summer without at least a few days of 100+ temps. That kind of heat just makes me want to find a cool spot, a good book, and a glass of sweet tea. The last thing I want to do is turn on the oven, but since we still have to eat, I try to find things that can be made with as little cooking as possible. This triple berry tiramisu is the perfect dessert for those hot summer days. It's no-bake, yeah! Full of ripe fresh berries tucked into a lemony cream, yeah! And, it's served COLD, woohoo! Okay, so you do have to turn on the stove for like 5 minutes to make the syrup, but that's it as far as having to cooking anything for this dessert. This tiramisu is the perfect antidote for a sweltering hot summer day!

Triple Berry Tiramisu
Source: King Arthur website, Fresh Berry Tiramisu, Adapted
Printable Recipe
2-7ounce packages of ladyfinger cookies

SYRUP
Zest of 2 lemons, peeled in strips with a peeler
Juice of 2 lemons (1/3 to 1/2 cup lemon juice)
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier or orange juice (optional)

FILLING
1 pound mascarpone cheese
2 tablespoons lemon zest
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
2 quarts berries: raspberries, blueberries, strawberries or any combination you like

TO MAKE THE SYRUP: Combine all the syrup ingredients in a small pot and bring the mixture to a simmer, stirring occasionally until the sugar dissolves. Once the mixture is clear, remove the syrup from the heat, strain it, and allow it to cool.

TO MAKE THE FILLING: Place the mascarpone in a mixing bowl, and stir in the lemon zest. Add the whipping cream a third at a time, stirring between additions until the mixture is smooth and starts to thicken slightly. Stir in the confectioner’s sugar.

TO ASSEMBLE: Lightly spray a 9-inch square pan with cooking spray. Drop the ladyfingers one at a time, into the cooled lemon syrup. Be sure to flip them over to coat both sides with the syrup. Do not over soak the ladyfingers or the tiramisu will be soggy. Fit as many ladyfingers into you pan as you need to cover the bottom of the pan, you may need to break a few to fit them in. Add a layer of your mixed fruit on top of the ladyfingers. Top the fruit with half of the cream mixture and add another layer of ladyfingers that have been dipped in the syrup. Spread the rest of the cream mixture on top of the lady fingers. Arrange the rest of the fruit on top. Chill the tiramisu for at least one hour before serving.

You say tomato, I say...

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Long hot days, shorts, flip flops, and juicy red ripe tomatoes; it must be summer! I look forward to eating those first tomatoes of the summer, all year. I love eating them anyway, on a sandwich, in a salad, or even just sliced with a sprinkle of salt. In the July issue of Southern living, they have a whole section dedicated to fresh tomato recipes. This one for tomato pie caught my eye. I had about 6 super ripe tomatoes (from my parents farm) that I needed to use, so I decided to make the tomato pie. It is fabulous! Flaky crust, lots of fresh herbs, and of course tomatoes, all baked together under a little cheese...amazing! This is the perfect recipe for in season, really ripe, tasty tomatoes. I would not recommend making it with your run of the mill grocery store tomatoes.Find a farmers market, farm stand, or farm trail, near you, get some tomatoes and enjoy a true bite of summer.

Tomato Pie
Virginia Willis, Southern Living 
JULY 2012 
Printable Recipe

For the crust:
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup cold vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3 to 4 Tbsp. ice-cold water

For the filling:
2 1/4 pounds  very ripe tomatoes, thinly sliced
1 1/4 teaspoons kosher salt, divided
1 sweet onion, chopped
1 1/4 teaspoons freshly ground pepper, divided
1 tablespoon canola oil
1/2 cup assorted chopped fresh herbs (such as thyme, chives, parsley,and basil)
1/2 cup freshly grated Swiss cheese
1/2 cup freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/4 cup mayonnaise 

Method:


The crust: 

Process first 4 ingredients in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal. With processor running, gradually add 3 Tbsp. ice-cold water, 1 Tbsp. at a time, and process until dough forms a ball and leaves sides of bowl, adding up to 1 Tbsp. more water, if necessary. Shape dough into a disk, and wrap in plastic wrap. Chill 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 425°. Unwrap pie crust dough, and place on a lightly floured surface; sprinkle with flour. Roll the dough to 1/8-inch thickness.

Place the rolled out dough into a 9-inch pie plate. Trim dough 1 inch larger than diameter of pie plate; fold overhanging dough under itself along rim of pie plate, crimp a decorative edge, if desired. Chill 30 minutes or until firm.
Line piecrust with aluminum foil; fill with pie weights or dried beans. (This will keep the crust from bubbling up.) Place on an aluminum foil-lined baking sheet.
Bake at 425° for 20 minutes. Remove weights and foil. Bake 5 minutes or until browned. Cool completely on baking sheet on a wire rack.
For the filling:

Reduce oven temperature to 350°. Place tomatoes in a single layer on paper towels; sprinkle with 1 tsp. salt. Let stand 10 minutes. Meanwhile, sauté onion and 1/4 tsp. each salt and pepper in hot oil in a skillet over medium heat 3 minutes or until tender. Pat tomatoes dry with a paper towel. Layer tomatoes, onion, and herbs in the cooled pie crust, seasoning each layer with pepper (1 tsp. total). Stir together cheeses and mayonnaise; spread over the top of the pie.
 Bake at 350° for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. If needed, shield the edges of the crust with foil to prevent excessive browning. Serve hot, warm, or at room temperature.

Celebrate Summer!

Green Tomato Cake

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I can hardly believe that June is almost half gone already! I've been working on a new project out at the farm and I've neglected to post here much this month. I'm so excited about my latest venture, the Route 52 Farm Trail but it's been very time consuming. Anyway, earlier this week Mom and I were canning some of the gorgeous San Marzano tomatoes my dad grew this year, when a summer storm hit. If you've every lived in the South, then you know that sometimes they seem to come from nowhere and are gone almost as quickly. This one was really intense for about 30 minutes and then was gone. We really needed the rain but the strong winds caused a few green tomatoes to fall off the plants. I brought them home with me and thought I fry them for dinner. I was looking in The Crescent City Farmers Market Cookbook , (in New Orleans), for a recipe when I came across this recipe for green tomato cake. Forget fried green tomatoes, cake it is! It may sound odd to put tomatoes in a cake, but green tomatoes have the texture that's similar to an apple, so they work perfectly in cake. The recipe in the cookbook didn't have a frosting, but I decided to top it with a brown butter icing. It's so good, I may be picking some more green tomatoes, just so that I can make this cake again!!

Green Tomato Cake 
Source: Kitty Hooper (Crescent City Farmers Market green tomato vendor)
Printable Recipe
Ingredients:
3 cups plain flour
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups chopped green tomatoes
1 cup chopped walnuts
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Method:
In a mixing large bowl, combine flour, sugar, eggs, oil, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt; mix well. Stir in tomatoes and walnuts The mixture is very thick! Pour batter into greased and floured bundt pan and bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour. Remove from oven and let the cake cool in the pan or cake will fall.

Serves 8-10


Browned Butter Icing
1/2 cup  butter
1 cup confectioners' sugar

After the cake has cooled and can be removed from the pan, make the frosting. In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt butter. Cook 6 to 8 minutes, or until butter is lightly browned. Whisk in confectioners' sugar until smooth. Drizzle over the cooled cake.

The brown butter icing is fantastic!

Just in case you thought I did this whole blogging thing all on my own, I do have a very faithful assistant...

My "assistant" checking for crumbs after the photos are taken.

What I did this summer...

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This past week marked the beginning of the school year in our area. I remember those first day of school jitters well. I could never sleep the night before and in the morning my stomach would do somersaults. I could never eat breakfast on the first day of school. It was partly anticipation and partly pure terror. Would I get in Ms. Soandso's class? Would any of my friends be in my class? In other words, there were a lot of unknowns. One seeming constant however, was the obligatory first day assignment of sharing with the class "What I did this summer". I sort of dreaded this assignment. I mean it was summer. What I really wanted to say was "I didn't have to go to school!" But they wanted more... Ummm, welllll, lets see...well "I went swimming", that was always something fun I could throw in. What I didn't share was that in between swimming in an actual pool, there was a lot of playing in the yard with the water hose and maybe slidding on some black plastic. "I played with friends." There again, it was mostly with my sisters, but also doesn't sound cool, at all. "Oh and we went to the beach!" Score! Very cool. Only it was usually just for the day, at the end of which we'd pack into the car and drive 90 miles back home. We were exhausted, sticky from salt water, sunburned, and with sand in some very uncomfortable places, but who needed to know those details. Yup, I'd had another great summer! So in honor of the first week of school, I thought I'd share what I did this summer, well part of it anyway.
At the beginning of the summer I blogged about the farmers market that I manage.Well the summer has flown by and we have ended another successful year at our market. It's a lot of work, in sometimes extreme heat, to run a farmers market. However, it's also so rewarding it to see our local community get excited about buying local grown and produced foods and merchandise and knowing the impact it has on our farmers livelihoods.

 

Lots of fresh locally grown produce 

One of our blueberry farmers sampling another farmers watermelon...it was as good as it looks!

Oats rolled while you wait.

Beautiful cut flowers

Farm fresh eggs

Home baked goodies

Cooking demos

Live music

Handmade pottery

  Handmade soaps

 

Art projects for the kids

  It was a great summer! To see what I did with the rest of my summer, see my previous post. So what did you do this summer??

Cantaloupe Soup

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It's late August. I live in the deep South. It's hot. I have no desire to cook much of anything. This is somewhat of a late summer annual event for me. Somewhere in the late part of August, I lose my desire to cook or even eat much of anything. Except for maybe ice cream...yeah I could bathe it a large bowl of cold creamy goodness right now...Oh sorry my mind is wandering! I kind of lose my appetite for much of anything else and I really don't feel much like getting in the kitchen and baking. When I was growing up my mom used to make cantaloupe soup in the late summer when she had dinner guests. She would cut the melons in half and scoop out the flesh and use the half rinds as bowls for the soup. Sometimes she used it as a first course and sometimes it was dessert. Either way it was always a hit with the company. Over the years I'd forgotten about that soup. I haven't had it since I was a teenager but was reminded of it as I flipped through an old cookbook looking at cold soup recipes recently.
There was a bumper crop of cantaloupes in our area this year. They have been really sweet and delicious. Really ripe sweet cantaloupe is nothing like the sad hard stuff you find on sliced up and served with continental breakfasts or on salad bars. As with all produce it's really only good in season, picked ripe. Anyway Hubs and I have eaten our fair share of cantaloupe this season. Just sliced and cold from the fridge...yum...

Although I have no desire to turn on the oven right now, I did muster up enough energy to whip up some cantaloupe soup. Whether you chose to eat it as a first course or dessert,this soup is perfect for these hot end of the summer days.

Cantaloupe Soup

1 large, ripe, cantaloupe

1 c. fresh orange juice

1/4 cup  plain yogurt

1 tsp. lime zest

2 Tbs. lime juice.

1 Tbs. mint, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish

1 Tbs. honey (optional if you'd like your soup a little sweeter)

Cut the cantaloupe in half , remove seeds, scoop out the flesh and place in a blender along with the orange juice, yogurt, lime zest, lime, and honey if using. Blend until smooth. Chill well. Stir in sliced mint leaves and serve. Garnish with additional mint leaves if desired.

 

Heat wave cure?

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It happened this week. It's officially HOT here in the other LA. That's lower Alabama in case you were wondering. The temperature has hit 100 and seems to be determined to stay there for the foreseeable future- UGG! To reward myself for managing to survive so far, I thought I needed dessert! While any sort of ice cream would suffice, what I really wanted was Key lime pie. With the combination of cold/creamy/tangy, Key lime pie was just what I needed to break my 99% humidity induced funk.
Recipe
Crust:
1 cup graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup crushed ginger snap cookies
3 TBS sugar
1/3 cup melted butter
Combine all the ingredients and press into a 9" pie pan.
Filling
Pre-heat oven to 350
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 egg yolks
1/2 cup of Key Lime juice (regular lime juice just isn't the same)
1/2 TBS of lime zest
Combine ingredients, mix until smooth.
Pour filling into prepared pie shell and bake for 15 min.
Allow pie to cool then refrigerate until cold.
Serve with freshly whipped cream.