Bye, bye tomatoes

One of the things I miss most about living in Salt Lake is my garden. For those of you saw it in year's past, it was a thing of beauty. An enormous, prolific and utterly awesome thing of beauty. One summer, I had 18 tomato plants. Yep, your eyes did not deceive you. 18 plants! I didn't waste my time with Early Girls or Big Boys; I planted heirloom beauties like Green Zebra, Brandywine, Black Krim, Cherokee Purple. To say I had an obsession over my garden is to say humans need oxygen to breath. I loved it. And I miss it.

So when my friend Christie started bringing tomatoes to the office from her Heber garden, I started hoarding all of her offerings. I could hear her coming down the stairs with bags of tomatoes, and I would quickly snake them all. Sorry office-mates. I have a disease. In fact, the name of this blog was almost TomatoEnvy. Here's an homage to the last of the season's tomatoes. Until next year.

Roasted Tomato Tart

Look mom, I made my own crust! Store-bought is fine, too.

Crust:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 sugar

1 stick butter, right out of the fridge

3 tbs water

In a food processor, add flour, salt and sugar. Pulse to mix. Gradually add slices of the butter. Finally, add the water, one tablespoon at a time. Continue to pulse until dough forms a ball. Wrap with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least half an hour. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Remove the dough from the fridge and start working into a disk. Place the dough into a pie pan and evenly press up the sides of the pan. Once evenly distributed, use the tines of a fork to poke holes into the dough. Bake 30-34 or until crust is golden. Set aside.

Filling:

10-15 plum tomatoes, sliced

1 cup goat cheese

2 tbs dijon mustard

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp basil

1 tsp oregano

3 large eggs

1/2 cup half and half

handful Italian parsley, minced

parmesan cheese

salt and pepper

Evenly spread mustard over the pie crust and sprinkle with goat cheese. Layer tomatoes around crust, overlapping as you go. In a large bowl, mix eggs, herbs, half and half, salt and pepper. Pour evenly over tomatoes. Top tart with parmesan cheese, minced garlic and parsley. Bake 1 hour or until the custard has set.

This would be a wonderful brunch or dinner meal. I ate the leftovers with an over-easy egg, and it was fantastic!