Orange You Glad I made a Tart?

Herewith a recipe for an orange puff pastry tart. It's so easy, it's almost criminal. If you use pre-made dough, there are only 4 other ingredients involved.

My daughter saw the finished product and asked when I had found the time to make the tart. She was sitting in the kitchen with me the whole time, but because it took such little effort, she had no idea I had made an entire tart.

This is the first time I've tried oranges as part of a tart. I really like the scent of the vanilla with the oranges and love how the segments look all laid out in rows on the pastry dough. Get creative here and add more fruit, or even a thin layer of warmed up apricot jam onto the dough before you place the orange segments.

Served warm with a scoop of coconut milk ice cream you will be brought right to summer's doorstep.

Note on the pastry dough:

Since this tart was for my co-workers, and not good old gluten-free me, I used a standard puff pastry, but did come across this gluten-free version from an Australian site. Or, you can make your own, using this recipe from the blog Tartelette, which I plan to do very soon.

Orange Puff Pastry Tart

Ingredients:

• 1 sheet frozen puff pastry
• 2 cups oranges, rind removed and cut into segments
• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon lemon juice

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Mix the citrus segments with the sugar, vanilla and lemon juice.
3. Lay the puff pastry on a baking sheet, pricking it with a fork, to keep it flat while baking.
4. Place the citrus segments on the puff pastry.
5. Crimp the edges of the pastry dough up over the edges.
6. Bake for 30 minutes, or until the crust just begins to brown.
7. Add the remaining juice/sugar mixture and bake an additional 10 minutes, until the crust is crispy.

Repost From Paris: Gnomes Caged

This post is one of my favorites. I love the area where all of the garden supply stores are. Original post was shown here.

OK, so I love gnomes.

I only keep one in the house, since my fear of becoming That Crazy Gnome Woman who the kids fear on Halloween is always quite high.

It is unclear to me what these gnomes did to deserve being caged.

Could be the creepy one with the lantern was peeping into people’s windows at night.

Or, maybe it’s the half-nude who was pulled inside for drunk and disorderly behavior.

Whatever happened, I may need to go spring them.

That day, Isabella and I enjoyed a plate of escargot. Two years later, she ordered escargot and ate the whole dish. It's a winning taste.

Click here to make Escargots à la Bourguignonne yourself, from a recipe originally published in Gourmet in 1949.

Joe Claro, King of the Roast Beef

Joe Claro makes a mean roast beef. That's my Dad, in case you didn't recall that from some of my other posts.

His method is simple just use some salt, pepper and roast the meat until cooked to your liking.

Everyday after school one of us five kids would get dinner started. Gran Fran would call us from her office (which was an actual office with a door and a ceiling, not a cube) and give us instructions. She talked at the lowest possible whisper, so we could barely hear when she said "Put the roast beef in for 1 hour. Make sure to put lots of salt on it." Trying to decipher her instructions took some time, and it often made me feel like we were involved in some kind of espionage instead of just dinner making.

Joe, on the other hand, always wanted to make sure that we knew the proper grammatical reason whether, when the roast was finished cooking, it was done or finished. I had to ask him to go back in time and outline his preference for the use of done or finished when referring to meat. We got in all kinds of trouble when we were kids. So, here's his definition (though he finally admits that maybe he's the only one who cares).

I am finished (with what I was doing). I have completed the activity I set out to complete.

The activity is done. It has been successfully completed.

I am (or you are, or she is) done should be used only when a person is the victim of cannibals, a tanning machine, or a hairdresser. Hence, the reference to roast beef.

On the other hand, if you check reliable usage sources,  you'll find that most otherwise respectable people no longer think this time-honored distinction is valid. This is one definite sign of the decline of Western civilization as we know it.

Let that be a lesson to you, young lady.

Now onto my all time favorite Joe-ism:  where does the inflection go when talking about roast beef?

The roast beef mispronunciation is a little harder to defend, but I'm ever willing to take on the extraordinary challenge.

In normal American English speech, a two-word noun-adjective phrase will almost always be pronounced with the stress on the noun. Nouns, after all, are far more meaningful than adjectives, which serve only to describe (or modify, in traditional grammatical jargon) the really important half of the phrase.

Of course, there are phrases in which we will on purpose emphasize the adjective, such as, "I wanted the GREEN beret, not the RED one." But that kind of pronunciation is by definition out of the ordinary, which is why we would usually exaggerate the emphasis.

So, unless you're talking about ROAST beef as opposed to BRAISED beef, emphasizing the adjective is careless, improper, and in some localities morally questionable.

And let that also be a lesson to you.

I am the grammarian about whom your mother warned you.

And so, goes my reminiscense of all things ROAST beef with Fran and Joe.

Roast Beef a la Joe

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 pound chuck roast
• Kosher or rock salt to coat the whole piece of meat
• Ground black pepper to coat the whole piece of meat

Method:

• Preheat oven to 425 degrees
• Thoroughly dry the chuck roast.
• Roll the roast in the salt and pepper, making sure to make a nice even coating, if possible.
• Roast for fifteen minutes.
• Reduce heat to 375 degrees and roast for an additional 40 minutes.
• Remove from oven and let rest for fifteen minutes.
• Grab your handy electric knife and cut into thin slices.

Sweet Potatoes Three Ways

I don't have much to say here, short of the fact that sweet potatoes really float my boat.

They are good many ways, so I've chosen to share three with you today: mashed, oven fries and baked. Each is good in its own way and all are a welcome addition to any table.

A lot of my friends are wary when I tout the goodness of sweet potatoes, since their main exposure to them has been in the form of a casserole covered in marshmallows and maple syrup. That makes them sweet in the wrong way, and I understand why my friends are not huge fans of the sweet potato. Generally, once they've tried one of my plain and simple treatments, they are converted.

Enjoy them on their own or integrated into a meal with a salad and a roast.

Mashed Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 sweet potatoes, skinned, boiled and diced
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1 tablespoon butter
• Salt to taste

Preparation

• Put boiled potatoes in a bowl, add milk, butter and salt and mash them all up thoroughly.
• You can also add 2 tablespoons of grated cheese like parmesan or sharp cheddar to the warm potatoes.

Oven-Baked French Fries

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 sweet potatoes, skinned and cut into matchsticks
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt to taste

Preparation

• Place potato matchsticks on a rimmed baking sheet and put them into a 425 degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes, flipping the potatoes over halfway through the cooking time. Remove from oven, salt and serve.

Baked Potatoes

Ingredients

• 1 to 4 potatoes (sweet, russet, new), pierced with a fork

Preparation

• Bake potatoes for 40 minutes, remove from oven, pop open the potatoes and serve!
• Serve with butter, sour cream, bacon or grated cheese.

Beet Salad with Oranges

 Gran Fran knows her way around beets. She would make them for us on a regular basis. Her salad involves only some olive oil and vinegar. And, she also cooks her with the skin on, removing it after cooking. Her method involves roasting the beets in the oven individually wrapped in foil (Gran Fran, let me know if I'm wrong here). Skinning the hot beets made me stay away from beet cooking for a good long time. My hands not only turned red from the juice, but also were slightly burned each time I tried to de-skin one of the beets.

My sister Danielle taught me this method, which turns your fingers red immediately, but leaves you with fewer burn marks on your hands. I think I end up with more beets, too. Using a vegetable peeler allows you to remove just the brown skin and preserve more of the good stuff.

I cook the beets in what will become the dressing for the final product, too, which gives you a really flavorful dressing. And, you are able to eat these hot, if you want to, without having to waste any time peeling off the skin.

The addition of oranges and sunflower seeds to this salad make it the perfect Spring-is-Here dish. It's fruity and earthy with just a little bit of crunch.

Featured on The Fruit Guys website.

Beet Salad with Oranges

INGREDIENTS

• 3 beets, skins peeled off, greens removed, cut into eighths.
• 1 small shallot, cut into quarters
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 orange cut into small pieces
• 1/2 teaspoon sunflower seeds
• Salt and pepper to taste

PREPARATION

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Place the beet and shallots onto a rimmed baking sheet, or into a baking pan large enough to allow space between the pieces.
3. Mix together the vinegar, oil, salt and pepper and pour the mixture over the beets, making sure to coat all sides of the beets.
4. Roast the beets in the oven for 40 minutes, or until fork tender, turning the beets every ten minutes or so.
5. In a large bowl, mix together the warm beets with the orange segments.

Featured: Slow Cooker Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce: America's Test Kitchen Feed

Imagine my surprise when, after a busy day at work, I came home to check in on Twitter and found out that America's Test Kitchen Feed had featured my photo!

You may recall that I made America's Test Kitchen's Slow Cooker Spicy Sausage Tomato Sauce recently. I posted a photo via Twitter and voila, it is now on their website.

The recipe is really simple and the results are great. Get this in the slow cooker, go out and have a fun day and enjoy this sauce just a few hours later.

Featured: DailyBuzz HealthyLiving: Avocados

My avocado and egg smash up is featured on today's DailyBuzz HealthyLiving site.

I'm excited to try some of the other recipes, especially the dark chocolate avocado mousse.

Congratulations to Peanut Butter Fingers, Running with Tongs, Skinny Taste, Kahakai Kitchen, Fun, Fit and Fabulous, Green Lite Bites and Bran Appetit.

Go get some avocados and give whip up one of these excellent recipes.

Repost from Paris: Greek Sandwich

a favorite sandwich from our 2010 trip to Paris....

GREEK SANDWICH!!

Oh man, this is good!

Michelle took me to her favorite greek sandwich place in the Mouffetard (Rue de Contrescarpe is just nearby).

It’s a sandwich that includes fries….on it! Did the purveyors of such a treat say to themselves “what kind of sandwich would Tashi like best?” and then add the fries to make it my favorite thing ever?!

Chicken marinated in secret spices, though I definitely tasted oregano in there. And the white sauce they put on there may have had yogurt. Oh, the pita bread was fresh and the tomatoes, too.

I do believe this kicked the L’As du Falaffel’s sandwich down to number two, but either would be delightful.

You can re-create one in your own home by using this lovely recipe.

The original post can be found on my Paris travel blog here.

Enjoy!

Veggies in the Oven: Cauliflower Gratin and Roasted Asparagus

 These two vegetable dishes are super easy to make and can be used as either a side dish or with some small additions, as a main dish. The roasted asparagus can be served with pasta and a poached egg, as a main dish. If you like, you can add bacon to the cauliflower gratin to make it just that much heartier.

Featured on The Fruit Guys website, here and here.

Cauliflower Gratin

Ingredients

• 1 head cauliflower, cut into florets, steamed for five minutes
• ¼ cup breadcrumbs (regular or Glutino gluten-free)
• ¼ cup grated Parmesan
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
2. Put the cauliflower into a casserole dish. Cover with breadcrumbs, grated Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper.
3. Bake for 20 minutes, until the breadcrumbs are browned and cheese is melted.

Roasted Asparagus

Ingredients

• 1 bunch asparagus stalks, bottoms trimmed off
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 450.
2. Place asparagus on a rimmed baking sheet and pour olive oil evenly over the top. Turn the asparagus over a few times to coat all sides in the olive oil.
3. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, until the stalks become browned and wilted.