Raccoon and Lobster

Andrew was a modern major general of a dog with a massive chest and imposingly perfect posture. I’ve never seen a golden who commanded so much respect. Rocky never quite developed that same barrel chest, but damn if he didn’t learn a thing or two about striking a pose.

Not the best thing to wake up to on a Sunday morning.

And boy does he look proud of himself too.  Not sure who the culprit is? There’s a post for that.

Or maybe just sick of reading about tarts? Well snap out of it, because this one is a doozy. I am extremely proud of how this came out. I have almost no recipes involving fruit because I prefer to eat my fruit au naturel. Rare is the recipe that can persuade me to spend time on a fruit dish when I can just eat it plain. Living in Southern California, ripe seasonal fruit from the Farmer’s Market is so good there’s no point in adding anything else to jazz it up. I buy oranges in 25lb bags fer christ’s sake. But this…this tart is magic.

And for those of you reading who are scared of baking because it’s “the math of cooking” (as if that’s a bad thing!) this tart technically requires an oven, but even a toaster oven would work. Don’t be scared! You don’t even really need a handheld mixer, although it does make for a smoother end result.

Nectarine, Mascarpone, and Gingersnap Tart
adapted from Smitten Kitchen, adapted from Bon Appetit
Makes one 8″ tart

24 gingersnap cookies, about 4 oz
4 tablespoons unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grind the gingersnaps in a food processor, or just put it inside a heavy duty ziploc bag and crush it with a rolling pin. Melt the butter and mix it with the crumbs and then press the mixture firmly onto the bottom and sides of the tart pan. You can use the bottom of a measuring cup or small glass to get the bottom flat and the sides straight. Bake for about 8 minutes, until nicely toasted. That’s it! You are now done with the baking portion. Let the crust cool completely. (Oh, and as a side note, this is my new favorite crust. Graham cracker can sit in the corner and cry itself to sleep because gingersnap is better in every conceivable way.)

6 oz of mascarpone cheese
4 oz of cream cheese, softened
3 tablespoons sour cream
3 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon of grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Beat until smooth with a mixer or the old fashioned way with a spoon in a Disney bowl . Spread in the crust, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate 2 hours, or up to a day.

Top with sliced nectarines. Gently brush with warmed peach jam if desired. I didn’t have any and I thought it was amazing. One final note: the original recipe calls for crystallized ginger, which Smitten Kitchen rejects as too much. I did not add any to the topping but I did use Trader Joe’s Triple Ginger Snaps which contain crystallized ginger. When ground up in the food processor and made into the crust, it gave a nice kick but didn’t interfere with the filling or topping. I think my way is the perfect compromise.

The Boyfriend: Did you see the pictures I took this morning? The pups were being very cute.
Me: Yes. They were very…blue.
The Boyfriend: Were they? I didn’t notice.
Me: Did you look at them?
The Boyfriend: Well, yeah. Just to see if they were in focus.
Me: And you didn’t notice the blue?
The Boyfriend: Not really.

It’s pretty easy to change up a tart by swapping some ingredients around. Yesterday’s tart was so well received that I knew immediately I would be making another one today. I actually purchased this tart pan on Bastille Day and it has sat around unused since then. I suspect that it will be in heavy rotation for the rest of the summer. These directions are just a guideline, you can vary proportions, add or remove spices, change up the cheese, or any number of other twists.

Start as before with your pâte brisée and line your tart pan with the crust.

Bacon and Tomato Tart
1 sliced tomato
4 oz grated gruyere cheese
2-3 slices bacon, cooked and chopped
4-5 cloves roasted garlic (to make roasted garlic, wrap a head of garlic in tinfoil, drizzle with olive oil, seal, and stick in a 350°F oven for about 45 minutes)
1 egg
2 dollops of sour cream
salt and pepper to taste
shredded basil

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Edit: As mentioned in a new post, I’ve discovered how to ensure that the crust stays flaky instead of getting soggy. Before putting in the tart filling, first parbake the crust by itself for about 10 minutes, until it just gets a touch of color. Then brush it lightly with an egg white wash and let that cool to form a barrier against the moisture of the filling.

Sprinkle in about half of the grated gruyere. Layer in sliced tomatoes. Add the bacon and roasted garlic. Beat the egg and stir in the sour cream, salt and pepper. Pour evenly onto your tart and cover with more gruyere and the shredded basil. Bake until cheese is bubbling and crust is golden brown, about 25 minutes for an 8″ tart. Serve warm.

A poor harvest from my own garden meant that I was constantly low on tomatoes. No matter how many I purchased from the farmer’s market, we were still always low on tomatoes when the need arose. Finally, the boyfriend picked up a bounty of heirloom tomatoes, which, of course, I now had to figure out a way to use up.

Enter the tomato tart. Refrigeration and baking time aside, this recipe is fast. Less than 15 minutes of work total. I was really pleased with how little good it was given how little effort I put in.

Tart dough (aka pâte brisée for you francophiles)
(makes enough for two 8″ tarts)
5.5 oz (1 1/4 cups) all purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
1 stick butter, chilled and cut into small chunks
~3 tablespoons ice water

You can use the pastry cutter method for this, but I’m a recent convert to the use of a food processor for making flaky crusts. Either way, you want to cut the butter in to the flour, salt, and sugar, leaving pea sized chunks. Gradually add in the ice water until the dough combines and is no longer crumbly but is also not wet or soggy. Wrap with plastic and chill for at least 30 minutes.

When the dough is properly chilled, it’s time to roll it out. You’ll need about half for an 8″ tart. Roll the dough out to 1/8″ thickness on a lightly floured surface, making a circle large enough to line the bottom and the edges of your tart pan. Gently lay it on top of your tart pan and press it down into the corners. If you let the excess dough lay over the edge of the pan, you can run your rolling pin over the pan and it will cut off the excess, leaving a neat shell in the pan.

For the filling, you can have some fun varying the ingredients. The one I’m making tomorrow with the leftover dough will have bacon and roasted garlic.

Tart Filling

ripe tomatoes, sliced 1/4″ thick
4 oz gruyere cheese, grated
2 eggs
splash of heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
shredded basil

Preheat oven to 425°F.

Edit: As mentioned in a new post, I’ve discovered how to ensure that the crust stays flaky instead of getting soggy. Before putting in the tart filling, first parbake the crust by itself  for about 10 minutes, until it just gets a touch of color. Then brush it lightly with an egg white wash and let that cool to form a barrier against the moisture of the filling.

Sprinkle half of the cheese in the pan and then lay out slices of tomatoes on top. Beat the eggs, add in the cream, salt, and pepper and pour into the pan. Cover with remainder of cheese. Sprinkle basil on top and bake for about 25-30 minutes (for an 8″ tart), or until the crust is golden and the cheese has melted. Serve warm.

I’m ashamed to admit the level to which it amuses me to have cute raccoon and lobster paraphernalia. In addition to being the names of my dogs, it also has special meaning for me and the boyfriend. I strictly limit their accumulation to avoid going down that particularly dark path of crazy collector lady, but I do enjoy an attractive knickknack or two.

The problem comes when achieving tchochke parity, however, as raccoon based trinkets overwhelmingly tend towards emphasizing their varmint status.

Compare this lobster scarf from J.Crew (which I own) with its nearest equivalents (which I do not):

Or the Kate Spade lobster collection, which featured purses, key chains, towels, and yes, a scarf,

with the equivalent in raccoon based carrying containers

Like I said, raccoons have an image problem. I now routinely find myself limiting the acquisition of thematically appropriate trinkets out of a desire to be fair and unbiased. Even now, there is a lobster shaped cookie cutter that has yet to be used because poor Rocky is without representation in aptly shaped cookies and biscuits. Arthur was able to dress up as his namesake for Halloween, as even canine costumes come in arthropod form, but search for raccoon costumes, and you end up with a disturbing collection of furry bait.

When will this discrimination end? If we are expected to shop our way out of our current economic crisis, designers need to step up and provide the appropriate nocturnal bandit-faced mammal accoutrements we need.

If you saw this picture without any explanation, you might assume that I was trying conceal this blueberry muffin. Although highly logical, your assumption would be incorrect. People also think that because the boyfriend enjoys eating, and claims to enjoy my food, that he eats my food. This assumption is also highly logical and is also incorrect. The problem is that when he realizes that he is hungry (itself a rare occurrence, as it requires a certain self-awareness that he is frequently too distracted to possess), he goes through a very fixed routine in his search for sustenance.

They include, in no particular order:

• Eating a square of chocolate from the chocolate drawer
• Drinking a glass of juice
• Eating a Trader Joe’s Fruit Floe
• Eating a mochi ball (Chocolate or Mango)

If there is fresh bread, there is a 32% chance that he will add

• Eat bread dipped in oil and balsamic vinegar

to this list.

Note that eating brioche buns, cupcakes, muffins, cake balls, coconut macaroons, doughnuts, chocolate mousse or cookies are not on this list, despite their prominent location on tabletops and counters. Items that require refrigeration or preparation in the form of heating are strictly off the list. For my sanity’s sake, we shall not go into the number of (quite expensive) steaks I’ve had to discard because he does not cook them. I’ve been forced to institute a ban on him taking home restaurant leftovers if it’s food that I will not eat.

So, while to many other people, storing a muffin inside of an opaque box would constitute hiding, for the boyfriend this would be a welcome change from my usual devious attempts to shield delicious treats from him by storing them on a plate on the countertop.

I’m having one of those times where even deliberate blog fodder projects come out underwhelming and uninspired. Not that there was anything strictly terrible about the red-headed stepchild velvet cupcakes or the promising lighter, cakier muffin that slowly deflated over a period of hours, or even the molasses bread recipe that heralded the long overdue start of breadtective investigations. They were all edible at a minimum, and some were actually pretty good, but none were exactly what I was looking for, and the idea of sitting down to write a blog post about yet another  C+ or even a B- is leaving me feeling underwhelmed and uninspired as well.

I’m hoping that the road trip looming in the works with my arch rival will churn up something interesting. Spending so much time in tight quarters with someone with such misguided ideas about rhubarb should give me some quality war stories at the very least. I’m sharpening my claws in anticipation.

In an effort to learn better photographic technique, I made the mistake of visiting some forums filled with very capable and talented photographers, many of them professionals. While this has improved my photography skills somewhat, it has also left me increasingly dissatisfied with my own abilities. Nonetheless, here are a few pictures from Huntington Gardens that I don’t completely hate, and one that I do but left in here anyways. Its identity is left as an exercise for the reader.