Tomato Basil Tart

One night a few years ago I was in the kitchen trying to come up with something for dinner. I rummaged through the refrigerator to see what ingredients that I had on hand. I found a pint of grape tomatoes that needed to be eaten, there was some leftover mozzarella cheese from lasagna that I had made a few days ago and some eggs. How could I combine these ingredients into something new and still have something familiar?

At the time, I remembered a very rustic tart from France. So I thought, what about putting everything into this nice crust and making it into a rustic tart! The idea certainly sounded good so I made my first "Tomato Basil Tart". For a first try the results were good, yet it still wasn't quite there. Something wasn't where it really needed to be. I continued making the tart on and off over the next few years.

We had fresh basil and parsley growing on the patio. When you have fresh ingredients like this it is best to just treat them simply so I picked some and gave it a rough chop. I assembled the tarts and scattered the fresh basil and parsley over the tomatoes. Once the tarts had cooled, I ate a slice and was shocked at how much better the tart tasted. Now I finally had the missing elements the fresh herbs really pushed the recipe over the top. Sometimes having leftover ingredients forces you to bring your best to the table and this was certainly the case here.

So let's get started!

*********************************

Tomato Basil Tart

*********************************

******Ingredients for crust*****

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter cut into small pieces
6 tablespoons ice water
1 inch tart pan or pyrex pie pan

*****Preparation*****

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cup and level with knife. Combine flour and salt in mixer for 30 seconds. Add butter, mix flour, salt and butter until mixture resembles coarse meal. With mixer on, add ice water. Press mixture into a 4 inch circle on plastic wrap, cover and place in freezer for 15 minutes.

Slightly overlap 2 lengths of plastic wrap so that you can roll out dough to form a 14 inch circle on a damp surface. Unwrap chilled dough, and place on overlapped plastic wrap. Cover with 2 additional lengths of overlapping plastic wrap. Roll the dough out into a 14 inch circle. Place the rolled dough with plastic wrap on a cookie sheet and return to freezer for 5 minutes until plastic wrap can be removed easily. Remove top plastic wrap sheets and press into a tart pan or pie pan. Remove second layer of plastic wrap then roll up excess dough to form an edge.

Place in oven for 15 minutes, if crust forms a bubble prick with a fork to deflate.

**********************************

*****Ingredients for Tart mixture*****

1 pint cherry or grape tomatoes
2 tablespoons lemon flavored olive oil
Sea salt freshly ground
Black pepper freshly ground
1/2 cup fresh basil roughly chopped or 1/3 cup dried basil
1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley roughly chopped or 1/3 cup dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon dill weed
1/2 teaspoon Italian Herb mix
4 large eggs
1 cup half and half
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese shredded or fresh

*****Preparation*****

Cut tomatoes in half and place in crust cut side up. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, drizzle with olive oil and toss to coat. If using fresh basil and parsley scatter over tomatoes and sprinkle with mozzarella cheese. Whisk eggs in a mixing bowl and add half and half, dill weed, italian herb mix, salt and pepper, whisk to combine. Pour egg mixture into crust and bake for 45 minutes at 375 degrees or until golden brown on top. Allow to cool for 20 minutes before serving.

**Sausage or other meat can be added if desired.

**********************************