An Affair of the Tart

Two facts for you:

1) My parents have an overabundance of tomato plants in their backyard that every year around late August yield TONS of delicious beefsteak, heirloom and yellow tomatoes

2) My parents are currently in Europe for the next two months.

You know what this means? All those lovely delicious summer tomatoes are MINE!

In my parents' absence Adam and I will be taking turns walking the dog in the evening since my brother works until 9PM and who could make THIS face,



wait THAT long to go out at night? Not us.

Not us. This affords me a great opportunty to do a lot of free laundry, and use their fabulous kitchen to concoct summer tomato recipes.

I decided on an Heirloom Tomato Tart because I had heirloom tomatoes and I happen to love a tart. Any tart. Sweet or savory. Bring. It. On. This one was easy to make and the cornmeal crust is a great healthy alternative to your normal flaky buttery tart crusts. Let us begin.

Heirloom Tomato Tarts
(from Health.com)
2/3 cup yellow cornmeal
2/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
2 tbsp unsalted butter, diced.
2 tbsp olive oil
4-5 tbsp ice water
3-4 good sized heirloom tomatoes
2 oz goat cheese
Fresh herbs for garnish

Combine the cornmeal and flour in a large food processor. Pulse a few times to thoroughly mix.

Add salt, pepper, butter and olive oil. Pulse for about 10 seconds or so until the texture resembles coarse meal.



While running the processor, drip in the ice water. I like to keep a few ice cubes in a measuring cup and just pour it from that into my tablespoon. You could also eyeball it but with me? Eyeballing + baking = disastrous.

Pulse until it starts to stick together but STOP before it sticks into one big ball.



Gently remove the dough and form it into a 4 inch disc. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate 15 minutes.



Preheat your oven to 400.

When the dough is nice and chilled, unwrap it and place it on top of a large sheet of wax paper. Put another piece of wax paper on top and use a rolling pin to roll it out evenly into the shape of your tart pan. This is an ingenious way to roll out semi sticky dough! Thanks health.com for sharing it!



Once the dough is the size you want remove the top piece of wax paper and lay the other dough side down onto your pan.



Press so there are no air bubbles and remove the excess.



Et Voila!

Throw it in the oven for 15 minutes and while that's baking thickly and evenly slice your tomatoes.



I threw some yellow ones in there for fun. I also like to drain my tomatoes on some paper towels before I bake them especially these which were especially liquidy.




When the crust is done and while it's still warm, spread the goat cheese over it. I may have used more than 2 oz. Ok I used 4. How can you not? There is no such thing as too much goat cheese and frankly 2 oz didn't seem like enough.



Layer your tomatoes so they are overlapping all over the goat cheese. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and bake once more for 15 minutes.



Garnish with fresh herbs ( I used fresh basil from the garden. O How I Love Fresh Basil!).

Let cool for 5-10 minutes, slice and serve. I found that the longer you wait to slice, the easier it is to do so and the more beautifully it holds together.

Enjoy!