A Perfect Recipe for the Tomato Garden’s Peak

Slice of rustic tomato tart, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

Even in a tiny driveway garden like ours, the week comes when there are way, way more tomatoes than two people can eat (especially if only one of us likes gazpacho; ahem). This is a great recipe for the days of unlimited tomatoes–I’ve been baking it for years, just baked it last night. SO delicious, very easy (really), and adaptable (we added onions last night, because we had some to use up; and we used a lot of fresh oregano for the herbs last night, because that’s also in peak supply right now in our garden).

“Rustic Herbed Tomato Tart with Parmesan Crust”
From LA Times Magazine, 7 June 1998, but adapted by Penny

Pastry:
1 cup, white flour
half a cup, whole wheat flour
1 stick (half-cup) cold butter, cut into five pieces
half a teaspoon salt
half a cup, Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
zest from half a lemon
a quarter cup of ice water

Filling:
2 tbsps Dijon mustard
2 tbsps Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
2 tbsps fresh basil leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped
1 tbsp Italian parsley, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
6-8 ripe tomatoes (about a pound and a quarter), cut into quarter-inch thick slices
1 tbsp olive oil
1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tsp water

To prepare pastry:
In food processor fitted with metal blade, combine flour, butter, salt and Parmesan cheese. Pulse until mixture resembles coarse meal. With motor running, add lemon zest and pour water through feeder tube in steady stream. Process until dough begins to bind. Remove dough and shape into 12 inch disk. (The dough can be used immediately or wrapped in plastic and refrigerated. When ready to use, remove from refrigerator and let soften to room temp, about half an hour.)

Preheat oven to 425 F.

On lightly floured surface, roll dough into 12-inch circle. Transfer to lightly oiled baking sheet. Using pastry brush, paint pastry with mustard, leaving a generous inch or so border all around. Sprinkle parmesan cheese evenly over mustard.

In a small bowl, combine basil, thyme, parsley, garlic, salt, and pepper. Arrange half of the tomato slices over mustard-cheese layer on pastry. Now sprinkle herb mixture over tomatoes. Cover with remaining tomatoes.

Fold pastry border over tomatoes to enclose sides of tart, gently draping pastry over tomatoes and folding it into soft pleats every few inches. Pinch any cracks to seal pastry and prevent tomato juices from running out during baking. Drizzle olive oil over tomatoes. Using pastry brush, paint dough with egg wash.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until dough is golden brown (not always very easy to tell with whole wheat, but there’s a lot of leeway here). Remove tart and let it cool for about ten minutes, serve warm.

All the purses so far (7/6/09)

All the purses so far (7/6/09), originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

All but one, technically–the first prototype that I carried around for a while–but it would have made the mosaic uneven. (Yes, it could have been 7×3 to accommodate 21. Didn’t like that shape.) Some of these are still for sale in the Etsy shop; some are sold, or donated, or swapped; some never appeared in the Etsy shop, because they were custom orders, or because I’m using them myself.

Stay tuned, more to come!

Recent projects, June

Recent projects, June, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

This looks sparser than other monthly mosaics, but one reason is that my camera’s acting up–so, some projects didn’t get photographed, like the 27 bottle-cap pendants I made for the Hands on Art docents at Lincoln (wearing one of those right now, in fact). Or the Mother’s Day cards I mailed without scanning. But the stuff I did photograph was all good fun too!

In blogging news, I set up a new blog/website for South Bay Hands on Art, which I’ll be co-chairing next year.  And I’ve joined the team at Indicommons, which is a blog about the Flickr Commons crowdsourcing project I’m obviously (and happily) addicted to.  My first post is about using Commons images to make simple greeting cards.  Thinking about making the next crafty demo post about freezer-paper stencils…. hmmmmm…..  I know, because I need to be juggling six or seven blogs right now.  Sure I do.

Hey, that’s me!

There’s an interview with me on the Smithsonian’s blog, The Bigger Picture–about my love of Flickr Commons, and my activities therein.   (Yes, I’m such an addict that they wanted to figure out who the heck I was.)

May 19: The Great Dark Day of 1780

On this date in 1780, the skies suddenly darkened all over New England–from Maine down as far as New Jersey, the darkness was thick enough to require candles in daytime, dark enough that owls came out hours before their nocturnal habits usually allowed.  Today it’s pretty clear that the cause was forest fires combined with unusual meteorological conditions; at the time, they didn’t know that, of course (no 24-hour-news channels or satellite photos).  Many were in fear, hurrying to churches to hear impromptu sermons citing Bible verses about the plagues of Egypt, prophecies, and the end of days.

In Connecticut, legislator Abraham Davenport was more pragmatic:

“The day of judgment is either approaching, or it is not. If it is not, there is no cause of an adjournment: if it is, I choose to be found doing my duty. I wish therefore that candles may be brought.”

He and his committee continued working, drafting regulations of the shad and alewife harvest.  Almost a century later, John Greenleaf Whittier celebrated Davenport’s response with a poem, titled “Abraham Davenport,” published in the Atlantic Monthly in 1866.

Poem for today: “Books” by Zora Cross (1890-1964)

Oh! Bury me in books when I am dead,
Fair quarto leaves of ivory and gold,
And silk octavos, bound in brown and red,
That tales of love and chivalry unfold.
Heap me in volumes of fine vellum wrought,
Creamed with the close content of silent speech;
Wrap me in sapphire tapestries of thought
From some old epic out of common reach.
I would my shroud were verse-embroidered too—-
Your verse for preference—in starry stitch,
And powdered o’er with rhymes that poets woo,
Breathing dream-lyrics in moon-measures rich.
Night holds me with a horror of the grave
That knows not poetry, nor song, nor you;
Nor leaves of love that down the ages weave
Romance and fire in burnished cloths of blue.
Oh, bury me in books, and I’ll not mind
The cold, slow worms that coil around my head;
Since my lone soul may turn the page and find
The lines you wrote to me, when I am dead.

Guilty Pleasure: Eurovision on YouTube

So every year, after the Eurovision Song Contest is over, it is my guilty pleasure to go looking at the performances on YouTube.  Not to see the winners, who are usually pretty uninteresting, but to see the wilder submissions–like Ukraine’s spectacular Verka Serduchka a few years ago. This year’s Eurovision videos are really well organized (for a change), so when I went looking for another extravaganza of accordions, wacky dancers, completely extraneous women on stage, distracting projections, and unique-looking singers, I pretty quickly landed on the Serbian entry.  Presenting:  Marko Kon & Milan Nikolic performing “Cipela”:

Recent projects, May

Recent projects, May, originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca.

Projects since mid-April–seven purses, an upsized Indian tunic (thanks H!), and a couple t-shirts made into a big scarf. The purses are selling pretty well, too!

Go Vote for My Purse!

Or whichever other project in Lisa’s Big Button Challenge you might fancy.  Voting closes next week, so head over right now.  Mine is #1, “Penny’s Bag.”

April 27: 250th Birthday of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797)

Mary Wollstonecraft

It’s my birthday too, but not a milestone like the 250th.

“How many women thus waste life away, the prey of discontent, who might have practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes the beauty to which it at first gave lustre.”

–Mary Wollstonecraft,  A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)