Tarty

Tonight I was hoping to mow the lawn when I got home because it finally stopped raining. Though I was distracted at my lunch break and reminded of Urban Vegan's Tart Gallery. After work I drove over to Bed Bath and Beyond to purchase my first tart pan with my $5 coupon. Yay, tart pan! Then, on the way home, I stopped at the Ward's Berry Farm to pick up some local raspberries. It was after 7pm when I got in the door and too dark to take care of the grass.

First thing I did was mix up the tart crust and put that in the fridge. While it was chilling, I made up some nachos. They didn't photograph well, but let me tell you that they were amazingly tasty. The cheese is Not Cho Cheeze from Little Lad's. The first ingredients are potatoes and carrots and then lemon juice and spices. I really need to experiment in duplicating it. I've never seen a "cheese" recipe like it, but I love the stuff. The rest of the toppings are chipotle salsa and mashed black beans.

After the nachos I went in search of cookie cutters for the tart topping and of course I couldn't even find one. I swear there is a box somewhere is this house with 100's of cutters. Instead I sliced the dough by hand. The recipe is Chocolate Raspberry Linzer Tart from vegweb. After the dinner, I was stuffed. Though I did manage a small slice of the tart and it is pretty good. I do like chocolate and raspberry together, but it would have been just as good sans chocolate. The crust is amazingly flavorful. I subbed sucanat for the brown sugar and that likely added nice undertones. For the filling, I used some organic strawberry, blueberry, raspberry preserves. I had no powdered sugar for the top, but I think it looks ok without it. Behold my vegan tart!

PS - I'm lazy and like to skip steps if possible. If you decide to make this recipe here's a time saving tip for you. After you take the crust out of the oven, put the chocolate chips on top. The heat will melt them and you can just spread it on the bottom. That is one less pan as you don't need to melt the chocolate.

This week has been busy as usual at work. Since I am not traveling until next week, I've been trying to get much done at home. I bought my house just over a year ago and up until now, the only furniture I purchased was a really nice dining set and a huge bean bag chair. Now, I actually have a sofa and I am looking at getting some other new stuff as I get more organized.

I've got one more (well maybe two) Tommy stories for you from my last trip. I'll write up the best one that I had been hanging onto. When I left Maine last Monday, I packed up and stopped at one of my friend's for dinner on the way home. C has a big German Shepherd and two cats. We weren't sure what Tommy was going to think of that. I walked in with Tommy in her carrier and the dog came running over to check out what was going on. Tommy let out this blood curdling raptor scream. It was so loud, I am sure the neighbors heard it. She scared the poor pooch (and the cats). They all ran away to another room.

Later, I brought Tommy over to Chouli the cat to see what they thought of each other. Choules was not interested at all which is funny because she likes to terrorize the poor birds in the backyard. I sat down on the couch to watch tv and Ernie the kitten climbed up on my lap. Tommy was not afraid of Ernie and she kept making kissing noises. Ernie stood up nose to beak with Tommy while she continued to make kissy sounds. Then Ernie starting patting Tommy. He was pawing gently at her back. It was the cutest thing I have ever seen! They snuggled right up next to each other and hung with me the rest of the time until I left.