tart it up: simple tomato phyllo tart

A few months ago I bought some phyllo dough with the intention of creating something fantastic out of it. It languished in my freezer for quite a while before a near-empty fridge made the decision for me that it was time to play with that phyllo pastry. So with a bit of store bought pesto, a couple of beautiful looking tomatoes and more olive oil than I cared to admit, I turned that phyllo into a pretty stunning tomato tart.


Phyllo has a bad rap, but I'm here to dispel the myth. It's not hard to work with it. Really. Repeat it 5 times. Trust me. All you need to have a successful go is a damp tea towel and a bowl of olive oil–plus a pastry brush. Phyllo is thin and brittle and tears like a mofo but don't sweat it if your sheet of phyllo rips in two. No one is going to notice once it bakes up. It's very forgiving that way. However, phyllo does dry out quickly which is the reason for the damp towel, so cover up what sheets you aren't currently slathering olive oil onto and you'll do just fine.


As for my tomato tart? Totally impressive in taste and appearance. Cornelius wondered why I called it a tart when he figured it should be called a pizza. Whatever, I'm being fancy so tart trumps pizza. Serve this for guests and they'll think you pulled out all the stops, so just bow and accept your accolades. I just made it on a Sunday night when it was just the two of us watching a movie (Zodiac, btw, which was sooooo beautiful in terms of lighting and camera work and made me swoon, as did my eternal crush, Mark Ruffalo).

One more thing totally food unrelated, next week, I'll be taking a little birthday road trip to the wilds of central and north eastern Oregon. We'll be around Bend, the John Day area and the painted hills for some camping and hiking. If anyone has any good food recommendations or cute towns or great thrift shops we must stop at, fill me in! We'll also head to my favorite city, Portland, for a couple days as well. Send me your recommendations please!!

tomato phyllo tart
6-8 sheets of phyllo dough, defrosted if frozen
1/3 c really good olive oil
3 T pesto
4 farm fresh tomatoes, sliced thin
1 small red onion, sliced thin
3 cloves garlic, sliced thin
1 bocconcini, sliced thin
1/3 c parmesan cheese
1/3 c fresh parsley, chopped

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Prep your work area by making sure you have got your olive oil and pastry brush at hand. Oil up the bottom and sides of a baking sheet and then rinse a clean tea towel and squeeze it dry. Open up the phyllo package and unroll the sheets of dough. Remove 1 sheet and then immediately cover with damp towel. Place sheet on baking tray and brush with olive oil. Repeat until you have several layers for the base and create a rim along the sides by folding over the edges slightly. Wrap up tightly any unused portions of phyllo and return to the fridge for another use.

2. With the same brush used for the olive oil, brush on the pesto into an even, thin layer. Layer tomatoes over the pastry, followed by the onions and then sprinkle on the garlic. Add the bocconcini and parmesan and then top with parsley.

3. Bake in oven for 25 minutes or until the phyllo turns golden and crispy. Remove and let sit for 5 minutes, then cut into squares.

Delicieux!

I want to go to Quebec again. When I mentioned this to Cornelius, he wasn't too thrilled. Ten years ago, he rode is bike from Vancouver to Montreal and then lived there for 3 short months. He worked as a bike courier during the very cold winter months and lived in a cramped, roach-infested room. He doesn't have very good memories of "La Belle Provence"...except for the meal he ate almost everynight after his courier shift was over which consisted of 4 steamies (hotdogs) and a cup of beer from a fast food chain called "La Belle Provence". Believe me when I say that I've got better memories than that of Quebec!

When I was little, we would visit at least once a year my grandparents in their hometown of Trois-Rivières or spend the summer months at their beach-front cottage at Lac au Sable. Going to visit my grandparents always felt a little strange as my dad would stay home in Ontario while we took the long train ride with my mom to visit her side of the family. My younger brother and I did not speak french very well and although I could understand what was being spoken, I was still quite shy to "parlez vous en francais" out loud. Everything seemed a bit louder in that cottage than in our quiet house in London, Ontario. There was more laughter and more singing and more drinking. Everyone seemed to be having a great time. But for me, going to the lake meant swimming, reading and eating pie. And, oh those pies!

It was at their cottage where I first tasted tartre au sucre. My grandmother would make 2 pies that I remember during the summer, framboise (raspberry) and tartre au sucre (sugar pie). For the raspberry pie, we would head out into the woods with large giant white buckets and start picking all the wild raspberries....some making it into the buckets and some making it into my mouth. Raspberries were my favorite fruit as a child and I loved my grand-maman's raspberry pie. Nothing could top that feeling of biting into the warm pie and crunching the seeds between my teeth. But that was until I tried tartre au sucre. I never knew exactly how that pie came together or what was in it and since my mother never made it, it was a complete mystery to me. But when it arrived on my plate still warm from the oven, I couldn't believe what I had been missing. Sweet, yet not overly so, it was creamy and rich and delicious.

This pie recipe wasn't my grandmother's recipe. My grandmother used real cream, of course, but this recipe still brought those memories flooding back. It's an easy pie to make and not at all mysterious. It's probably not as delicious as my grandmother's pie, but that's the stuff of memories anyway. Enjoy.

tarte au sucre
6 T all-purpose flour
2 c packed brown sugar
1 1/2 c evaporated milk
4 T butter
1/2 t salt
1 t vanilla
1 unbaked pie shell

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. In a saucepan, combine flour and sugar. Turn heat to medium-high and stir in milk, butter, salt and vanilla. Stir constantly until mixture comes to a boil. Remove from heat and pour into an unbaked pie shell.

3. Bake at 350 degrees F for 35 minutes or until the pie sets (it should still jiggle but not be liquid).