Tomato Tart with Puff Pastry

 

This tart is a great way to use some of the beautiful and colourful heirloom tomatoes that you grow in your garden. And it uses store-bought puff pastry because it’s just so easy. 

** Making this doesn’t take a lot of time but you do have to do a couple of steps in advance to make sure your tart pastry isn’t soggy, so please read the instructions through in advance. **

Yield: Lunch for 4, appetizer for more

Ingredients:

4-5 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced

7-10 cherry tomatoes, sliced

1-2 tbsp chopped fresh herbs (any combo: thyme, basil, tarragon, parsley, oregano etc but must be fresh)

2 tbsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp butter

3 tsp milk

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (defrosted overnight in fridge)

1 ½ cups grated sharp cheese (gruyere is best)

Salt & pepper

Olive oil

Method: 

Defrost pastry overnight in the fridge. **

Thinly slice tomatoes and spread out in a single layer on a cutting board or two. Cover with paper towel to absorb the liquid. You will probably have to do this twice at least so give it a couple of hours. Having dry-ish tomatoes means your tart pastry won’t be soggy. **

Preheat oven to 400 F

Cover a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

Unroll the defrosted pastry on to the parchment and stretch it out a little bit.  With a sharp knife, score the pastry ½” or 1.5 cm inside the edge all the way around, making sure you don’t cut through the pastry.

Inside the score line, poke the pastry all over with a fork. Cover the inside area with a thin layer of Dijon mustard.

Melt the butter in a small bowl and add the milk. Brush the mixture over the scored edge of the pastry. This will help it to brown up a bit. Put the prepared pastry into the over to brown for about 15 minutes.

Remove pastry from the oven and press down with a fork any of the inside area that is puffy.

Spread cheese in thin layer across the bottom of the pastry. Then lay the tomatoes in a single layer (make it pretty!) from edge to edge on the inside section of the pastry.

Sprinkle with a bit of salt and the chopped herbs. Drizzle with a little bit of olive oil and fresh ground pepper if you like.

Put that gorgeous baby in to the oven for about 25 minutes (don’t let the crust get too brown on the edges) et voila!

Remove from the over and let cool. This tart is delicious both warm and at room temperature so it can be made a few hours ahead.

 

 

  

 ©️ Gail J. Cohen 2021

 

Caramelized Onion & Tomato Pie

This is a great summer brunch dish and also an excellent way to use some of the beautiful tomatoes that you’ve grown in your garden or got at the local market. Serve with a fresh salad.

Makes 4 servings

Ingredients

2-3 medium tomatoes, thinly sliced

6 cherry tomatoes, cut into quarters

1 medium onion thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic finely sliced

1 sheet frozen puff pastry (defrosted)

1.5 cups grated gouda

1 egg, beaten

A few sprigs of fresh thyme or ½ tsp dried thyme

1 tsp balsamic vinegar (the more aged/thick the better)

1 tbsp of butter

Flour for dusting

Method:

Put the sliced and cut tomatoes onto a few sheets of paper towel and sprinkle lightly with salt. This will help to draw the liquid out and make your pie more crispy.

Heat the butter in a medium sized frying pan and saute the onions for about 15 minutes on medium. Sprinkle a bit of salt while they’re cooking and stir frequently. They should get all dark and soft and caramelized. Once they are just about ready, toss in the garlic and saute for a minute or so. You don’t want the garlic to burn as it’ll get very bitter. Take off the heat and set aside.

Preheat your oven to 425F and line a baking pan or pizza pan with parchment paper.

Dust your counter or board in preparation for the pastry. Take your now-defrosted puff pastry (or make it if you have nothing but time on your hands!) and roll it out a few times just to make it a bit thinner than it is out of the package.

A whole piece of puff pastry is probably too big so maybe cut a quarter off the end and use that to make a few either sweet or savoury turnover. (I made swiss chard and goat cheese ones).

Roll the pastry onto your roller and then unroll it nicely onto the parchment paper covered pan. Prick the pastry a bit with a fork.

Take your now cool onions and spread them on the pastry. Leave a bit of an edge because you’re going to fold the edge over for max prettiness.

Cover the onions with a layer of cheese. Then artfully place the sliced tomatoes on top of the cheese. Make a frame around the edge of the onion/cheese/tomatoes with the little wedges of cherry tomato. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, and thyme. Drizzle the balsamic vinegar over the top of it all.

Now gently fold the extra pastry over the top. It will form a frame around the edge (whether you do it as a rectangle or a circle). Lastly, give a generous egg wash all around the pastry on the top.

Bake for about 20-25 minutes until the pastry is a nice darkish brown. If there’s a little too much liquid still in your tomatoes once the pastry is done, you can just daub it with a bit of paper towel once you take it out the oven.

Let it cool for a few minutes, top with some fresh basil, then serve and enjoy.

© 2020 Gail J Cohen

Garden fresh gazpacho

This year I planted green pepper basil in my garden. It is exactly as you can imagine - green leafy plant that tastes like a mix of basil and green peppers. I had never seen it before and didn't really know what to do with it but wanted to use it...so the combination of many ripe tomatoes and this new fangled green pepper basil led to the following gazpacho recipe.

I also didn't feel like cooking. This whole operation took about 10 minutes including picking things in the garden.

Green pepper basil

Yield: 2 large servings

Ingredients

1 beefsteak tomato
1/4 white onion
1/3 English cucumber
1/3 red pepper
2 green basil leaves
1/2 garlic clove
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil
Pinch of salt

Basically cut all the vegetables up a bit then put it all into a blender with the vinegar, oil, and salt. Waz it up for about 30 seconds - you still want a bit of chunkiness in your soup. Check the seasoning and add salt or more vinegar to suit your taste.

Serve and enjoy.

© 2018 Gail J Cohen

Vegan chiles rellenos

I love chiles rellenos and this summer have a bumper crop of poblano peppers growing in my garden so all the more reason to make them. However, they can be a bit heavy and my partner is trying to eat healthier, so I put my mind to figuring out a vegan version.

I also don’t like using “weird” stuff, so there’s no vegan cheese or anything else in here. Just straight up stuff that you’d have in your kitchen to make a vegan picadillo and then stuff the peppers. The batter is a little odd but works and is a bit lighter than the eggy versions that are more traditional.

There are quite a few steps to this dish but they are below, so go for it. I serve it with rice, so remember to have that on the go as well. Some people will stuff the peppers and refrigerate them for an hour and then batter and fry them. If you do it that way, you can make the tomato sauce and batter during that cooling off period.

Serves 2-3

Ingredients:

4 poblano peppers

Picadillo

1 tbsp oil

½ onion, diced

1 carrot, diced

2 cloves garlic, finely chopped

½ cup fresh or frozen corn

1 potato, diced

1 jalapeno, diced

½ tsp Mexican oregano

½ tsp ground cumin

2 tbsp tomato paste

2 tsp tamari

2 cups water

Salt and pepper

Batter

½ cup regular flour

½ cup cornstarch

Pinch of salt

¾ cup soda water

Tomato sauce

1 dried chile (arbol, puya, cascabel, costeno amarillo)

3 tomatoes (or a combo of tomatoes and tomatillos)

1 clove garlic

½ onion

2 tbsp chopped cilantro

Salt and pepper

Splash of oil

Instructions:

Roast the poblanos. 

If you have a bbq or gas stove, char the skin over the flame. If you have an electric stove, put it under the broiler for 10-15 minutes turning it so all sides get charred. Put the hot peppers in a bowl, cover them with a tea towel, and let them sit/steam for 10 minutes or more. The skin should now come off easily when you rub it. Be careful with this step because you want to keep your peppers in the best shape possible for stuffing. Remove as much of the blackened skin as you can then carefully slice from tip to tail on one side and, again carefully, remove the seeds. Make sure the stem remains attached. Rinse and put aside.

To make the picadillo:

Heat the oil in a medium saucepan. Add onions and saute for a couple of minutes. Add the rest of the vegetables and saute for another minute or two.

Mix tomato paste and water together so you get a tomato juice type situation going on. Add that to the veggies in the pan along with the herbs and tamari (which gives this a bit of a beefier flavour but can be left out if you don’t have any). Bring to the boil, then lower the heat and simmer for about 25 minutes until the carrots and potatoes are soft. You want the final product to be quite dry but if it starts looking like it’s drying out and going to burn before the veg are cook, just add a bit more water. Check the seasonings and then put aside to cool.

For tomato sauce:

Stem and seed the chile and then soak in a bit of boiling water for 15 minutes.

Roughly chop all the other vegetables. Chuck them in a blender along with the softened chile and a couple of tablespoons of the soaking water. Waz it all up until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Heat the oil in a small pot. Pour in the sauce. You should get a lovely sizzle so just watch you don’t get burned. Add salt and pepper. Turn the heat down and simmer for 10 minutes. The sauce will turn a darker red colour. Taste again for seasoning.

Batter up

Make the batter by simply adding the flour, cornstarch, salt, and soda water and whisking it all together.

Stuff it

At this point, you’re going to stuff the peppers, which is a bit of a fiddly business. Just be patient and have some toothpicks on hand to help seal the stuffed peppers.

Take a split pepper and place in the palm of your one hand. Gently fill with 2 tbsps or so of the picadillo (depending on the size of your peppers, you may need more or less). Make sure they are not too full to allow you to pull the two sides together and seal with a toothpick or two. Repeat for each of the poblanos.

In a medium sized frying pan, add enough oil to generously cover the bottom of the pan and heat.

Gently dip each of the chiles in the batter and place slowly into the hot oil. Cook for 3-4 minutes on each side or until the batter gets lightly golden brown. If the batter doesn’t stick as much as you’d like, you can spoon a little bit more on the chiles while they’re cooking.

Once they’re all golden brown, remove to a bit of paper towel to absorb a bit of the oil. Serve over a bed of rice with the tomato sauce.

Buen provecho.

© Gail J Cohen 2018

Beet and sweet potato soup

This is a hearty vegan soup that has a little warm heat from the delicate Kashmiri chile.  I love beets and this seemed like a great way to use them and sweet potatoes, which I’d also like use in more dishes.  And pink soup, woo hoo!

6 servings

Ingredients:

4 small beets

2-3 small sweet potatoes

1 onion

1 tsp whole cumin

1 tsp whole coriander

1 green cardamom pod

1” piece of ginger

4 cups veggie stock

1 tsp Kashmiri chile

4 tbsp oil

Salt

Peel the beets and sweet potatoes and cut into smallish pieces. There are two ways you can prepare them to get a deeper and richer flavour. One is to roast them in the oven: Heat oven to 375F. Sprinkle veg with oil and a tiny bit of salt. Wrap in a foil package and then roast for about 45 minutes.  

The second is to saute them in oil for a bit in a frying pan so they get a bit caramelized and soft around the edges, which takes about 15 minutes.

In the meantime, take the cumin, coriander, and seeds from the cardamom pod and grind them in a mortar & pestle or spice grinder. The flavours are best when freshly ground but you can always use already ground spices.  Finely chop or grate the ginger.

Dice the onion. Add 2 tbsp of oil to a medium sized pot and sautee the onions with a pinch of salt until just starting to brown. Then add the ground spices, ginger, and chile and fry for just a minute.

Add the veggie stock and roasted vegetables. Bring to the boil. Then lower the heat and simmer for about half an hour until the vegetables are soft. 

Remove from heat and blend until quite smooth. Adjust the seasoning. Serve with a small dollop of sour cream or cashew cream.

© Gail J Cohen 2018

Vegan basil hemp pesto

I've been cooking but not writing about it much lately. Trying to get back on track. The fall harvest is a great time to do it! Here's one for the gardeners (and the vegans).

If you're like me, you tend to grow basil in your garden in the summer and there's only so much of it you can use before the frost get it. Pesto is one of the greatest ways to use up large amounts of the fresh stuff. And making it takes hardly any time at all.

And this recipe mixes it with one of my favourite (and local!) seeds: hemp, which have an extraordinary nutty flavour that is enhanced by toasting the seeds before making the mixture. Add a little hemp oil to ratchet up that nuttiness. The fresh parsley, which is likely also in your garden, adds a bit of herby lightness.

Yield:  1.5 cups

Ingredients

1/2 cup hemp seeds

3 loosely packed cups of fresh basil leaves

1 sprig fresh Italian parsley

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced

1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil

3 tbsp cold pressed hemp oil

2 tbsp nutritional yeast

1/2 tsp salt

fresh ground pepper

Toast the hemp seeds in a non-stick pan on medium heat. It will seem like it takes a while but keep your eyes on it at all times because the seeds will go from not toasted to burnt in about 30 seconds. The toasting shouldn't take more than about 5-6 minutes depending on the pan you're using. Cool before making the pesto.

Clean the basil and parsley, making sure it's mostly dry before continuing on.

Add all the ingredients into a food processor. Blend for about a minute making sure the garlic is all chopped and it is quite smooth and creamy. Check the seasonings and voila. 

Use it on pasta, add cream/cream substitute if you want to make a creamy sauce, use it dressing for salads, etc.  It'll keep in the fridge for about a week but you can also freeze it in ice cube trays and save it for later when you're yearning for some garden freshness in the middle of winter.

© Gail J. Cohen 2017

Mexican egg cups with roasted tomato and chile sauce

Sometimes you want something a little flavourful for breakfast (or even breakfast for dinner). Some members of our household (never me) go running on Sunday mornings and I tend to take that time to whip up a breakfast/brunch that’s a bit heartier and more complicated. Also if you’re just hosting friends for brunch and want a dish that will impress, give this recipe a try. These eggs in a spicy tomato sauce served in a crispy tortilla bowl look nice and offer up some delightful Mexican flavours.

As with many chile sauces, the chile you use defines the flavour. I’ve provided a few options below. You can really use any dried chile so explore something new. I like to use costeño amarillo, which I brought back from Oaxaca, Mexico. This doesn’t work as well with fresh chiles.

Yield: 2-4 servings

Ingredients

Chile sauce 

Makes 1.5 cups sauce

chiles*
1/2 onion
3 roma tomatoes or 2 dozen cherry tomatoes
2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp Mexican oregano
1/4 tsp freshly ground cumin
1/2 tsp of sugar
juice of half a lime
1 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil

* I used 3 costeno amarillo chiles (med spicy) – this would also work with 3 dried red chiles that you find in the stores (spicy), 2 guajillo chiles (fruity not too spicy), 1 pasilla chile (earthy not too spicy), 2 chipotle chiles (smokey and medium spicy)

4 fresh corn tortillas
4 eggs
1/2 cup grated cheese (cheddar, jack, queso fresco)
1/2 avocado, thinly sliced
Bit of finely chopped tomatoes or pico de gallo


To make tortilla bowls:

Preheat the oven to 350F.

Make sure your tortillas are soft and pliable so they don’t crack. If they are a bit dry, sprinkle them with water, wrap in a damp paper towel, and microwave for about 30 seconds.

Spray each tortilla all over with some cooking spray. Then manoeuvre the tortilla into an oven-proof dish (I used some onion soup bowls) so they’ll create a bowl. Bake for about 10 minutes until lightly browned and crispy. Set aside when ready. Don’t remove from the bowls.

To make the sauce:

Stem and seed the dried chiles. If using larger chiles, splitting them open so you can flatten them. Heat up a comal or a non-stick frying pan and dry roast the chiles in the pan. Heat them for about 20 seconds on each side, flattening with a spatula, so they get soft. Be very careful not to blacken the skin otherwise your sauce will be bitter. Wispy smoke is okay, more than that they’ll be burnt and bitter. Place the roasted chiles in a small bowl of boiling water for 20 minutes so they can rehydrate.

Thickly slice the onion. Put it along with the garlic with its skin still on, onto the comal or frying pan. Roast them until they are blackened on both sides. Put the tomatoes on as well. If you’re using larger ones, they’ll take a bit longer to roast. Turn them frequently until blackened all over. The cherry tomatoes won’t take very long. Let them get black on one side then roll over so they get another blackened area. Don’t let them burst open because it’s messy and you’ll lose most of the meaty good stuff.

With the garlic, once it’s ready put to the side and let cool, then slip off the skin. Put the other roasted ingredients as they’re ready into the jar of a blender. Add the cumin, oregano, salt, and sugar as well as the rehydrated chiles and 1/2 cup of the chile water. Blend it all together until you have a smooth, yet fairly thick sauce, about 3 minutes. If it’s too thick add a bit of plain or the chile water to thin it out a bit. Squeeze in the lime juice.

In a small sauce pan, heat the oil to a high heat. The sauce needs to really sizzle when you pour it in so test with just a drop to see if it’s hot enough. When it is, pour the sauce from the blender jar into the pot. It’ll sizzle and sputter a bit so watch out. Turn the temperature down to med-low and simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The colour will darken and the simmering allows the flavours to all blend together. If it begins to dry out and stick to the bottom of the pot, just add a bit of water.

Check for seasonings and let rest a few minutes while you bring it all together.

Bringing it all together:

Put the oven back on to 350F. Sprinkle the bottom of each tortilla cup with a pinch of cheese (or more if you desire). Put them back in the oven for 7 minutes or so until the cheese melts.

Cook the eggs. If you are an egg poacher, then knock yourself out and poach four eggs. If you prefer to fry them, then make it so. Cook them so the yolks remain soft and runny.

Once the cheese has melted, take the tortilla cups out and, if you prefer, remove them from the bowls you’ve cooked in and put on a plate. Gently place your soft eggs in the cup. Top with a generous dollop of the spicy tomato sauce. Garnish with the sliced avocado and tomato/pico.

Serve them up and enjoy.

© Gail J. Cohen 2017

I'm smokin' hot (sauce)

Every year I plant hot peppers in my lovely little garden. I tend to have a bit of a variety but every year I put in cayenne peppers because they never disappoint. This year I only had one plant but supplemented it with some serranos and jalapenos, so had a good variety of hot peppers. And at the end of the season, there are always lots left over. So what to do with lots of fiery little chiles?  Well make them into hot sauce, of course! 

Here's my quite simple hot sauce recipe from the archives:

Yield: about 100 ml

Ingredients:

1 dozen cayenne peppers
2 heads of garlic
3/4 cup of vinegar
salt
pinch of sugar

I had a lot of cayenne peppers and the others that I also grew, so threw a few of those in the mix, and made 4x the recipe.

.

First cut off the stem, slit, and remove the seeds of each pepper. Please do this with gloves. And don't touch your eyes, nose, or mouth while you're doing the deed. The burn is fierce.

The traditional Tobasco Sauce has "aged" peppers but in the age of instant gratification, I deepened the flavour by roasting the peppers a bit. I used my favourite Mexican style of dry roasting on the comal, but you can do it in a large non-stick frying pan or by broiling them in the oven until the skin turns a bit black. Some people suggest taking the skins off after the roasting but seriously, that's a bunch of fiddling around that takes up time I'll never get back. So I just tossed them, the garlic (which I also roasted but there's no need to), and the vinegar into the blender and wazzed it all up.

Once it's all lovely and liquidized, simmer the mix on the stove for about 20 minutes. At this point, the whole kitchen, if not house, will start smelling like hot sauce. There may be some burning eyes. It's all for a good cause.

Once the simmering of the flavours is done, run the whole thing through a sieve to clear out the pulp, seeds, and skin.

This, I would say is the time to add the salt, if you're not too busy forgetting to do it like I did, and sugar.

You need to prepare some jars to put this lovely concotion in. I didn't have any traditional style bottles so I used small jam jars (125 ml each). They need to be washed out with boiling water and new lids prepared in boiling water. Once that's all ready, pour the sauce in, seal and you're ready to go with some smokin' hot sauce!

Salata de berenjena (Eggplant salad)

Salata de berenjena is one of those dishes my family has been eating ever since I was a little kid and was definitely not something I enjoyed back then. But as a ‘grown up’ I love it. Simple, fresh ingredients that with a little TLC yield a spectacularly tasty appetizer or side dish.

This salad is also a great way to use up the less-than-perfect tomatoes from the garden at the end of the season.

It’s not a traditional salad but more along the lines of a ratatouille as almost everything is cooked. The salata is not something I make very often because it’s quite time consuming ̶ and really my parents have always made fabulous versions of it, so why mess with someone else’s success? Below is my dad’s version of this traditional Sephardi Jewish vegetable salad.

Leave yourself a bit of time – maybe 1.5 hours – to prepare it as there’s lots of slicing and frying. It’s also best made a day ahead but at the least in the morning if you’re going to have it for dinner. The vegetables need to marinate to realize their full deliciousness.

Yield: 10 servings

Ingredients

1 large eggplant, peeled and sliced
3 green or red peppers
3 tomatoes, thickly sliced
3 small potatoes, sliced
2 tbsp chopped parsley
oil for frying

Dressing:

1/3 cup white vinegar
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 tsp salt

The slices of eggplant should be about 1 cm thick.  Salt and place in a colander to drain for 30 minutes.

While the eggplant is doing its thing, put your oven on broil with the rack near (but not right at) the top. Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds, and place skin up on a foil-covered baking tray in the oven for 15 minutes. Bake until they are tender and their skin is charred and blistered. Remove from the oven and let cool, then peel and slice.

Start frying your potatoes in a large, non-stick frying pan. Don’t be shy with the oil but you are not deep frying them either. Continue to add frying oil as you need it along the way. Cook the potato disks to a lovely golden brown and drain on some absorbent paper when they’re ready.

Those who know more than I do suggest dipping the eggplant in a bit of milk before frying it so it absorbs less oil. I do it but can’t actually attest to whether it makes a difference. Either way, fry the slices of eggplant until they’ve got a little bit of black on each side (key says my dad) and then drain on some paper.

Gently fry the tomatoes. You want them a bit soft but if you fry them too long they’ll just turn into mush, so don’t overdo it.

Once everything is fried and cooled, layer the potato, eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes in a glass or ceramic dish. Sprinkle the parsley generously on the top. Mix the dressing and pour over the vegetables.

Let it cool completely before covering with cling wrap. If you are leaving it overnight, you can put it in the fridge but be sure to take it out a couple of hours before serving because it should be at room temperature for maximum flavour. Just before serving toss the salad gently to get all the flavours mixed up but without making the vegetables into pulp.

© 2016 Gail J. Cohen