Friday, August 06, 2010

T is for Tart Failure

For a Fail Tart, it's quite pretty.
Was it me? I'm not sure. I'm not sure what's worse – me screwing up the recipe or the recipe being crap. Either way. Failure.

There are a few recipe book authors who I trust implicitly. I have made enough of their recipes to trust that unless something goes drastically wrong (like the time I mixed up the baking powder and baking soda in the pancakes when I was seven – sorry dad, thanks for eating them anyways) the end result will likely be scrumptious and dependable.

So I am pretty disappointed with the tart I made last weekend. Not only did I actually follow the recipe to the letter, I also bought a bunch of ingredients especially for it, and it was sort of a kind of pricey endeavour. And it wasn't very good. It was slightly bitter. It didn't set properly. Yuck.

So I won't give you the recipe. Nor will I tell you where I got it from or who wrote it. It's their only spill up so far – I'll let the author get by scott free just this once.

However! The pasty bit of it was lovely-  a bit of texture with the addition of polenta and some parmesan- and I had a bit left over so tonight I pulled it out of the freezer and made a fridge tart. And it was delicious and lovely and well set and much better than the fancy one I tried last week. So there.

Fridge Tart

Two leeks, chopped and softened in butter
Two cloves of roasted garlic
A half a pot of creme fraiche (about a quarter cup?)
Four sundried tomatoes, chopped
A quarter of a round of sheep's cheese, chopped
A pinch of chili

Left  over pastry gets rolled out into a vaguely round shape. The fridge bits get mixed together, taste and season, then plopped in the middle, bring the sides up and bake until nicely browned.

Tada! MUCH better than the flouncy fussy one from last week. So there.

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