Roasted Tomato and Leek Tart: Foodie Friends Friday Linky Party #5

Now that my Sunday morning routine involves a trip to Dupont for the farmer's market, I've started to make some farmer friends.  It's like that cooking channel commercial, food people are inclusive which is why a group like Foodie Friends Friday is so great.  We just want to share food, whether talking, writing, making, or eating.  So this week, I decided to make a tomato tart to highlight the food friends I've made and celebrate the linky party!

Every week, I go to the same tomato guy for super juicy ginormous tomatoes that almost rival a farm stand on the way to the beach tomato.  I had been scrolling through the french issue of Gourmet Live (source material for the 50 Women Game Changers Group) when I was waking up that morning and saw the most beautiful tomato tart.  I knew I wanted to try to make my own, so I grabbed a few extra tomatoes from my tomato guy, picked up some leeks and puff pastry, and got to roasting!

I've roasted plum and cherry tomatoes a bunch, but never big giant tomatoes.  I wasn't sure if I should seed them first, so I just left them be and thought that I could get them out in the end.  Hind site?  I think I would have deseeded just to ensure there wasn't any excess moisture in the tart that could potentially prevent the pastry to puff.  The roasted tomatoes were layered over puff pastry rolled out and covered with a creamy leek base.

I was a total sucker for the leeks, eating a spoonful here and there while the tomatoes were roasting.  I "melted" them by sauteing in butter over a low heat.  Once the leeks had been slowly browned, I added nutmeg, goat cheese, and heavy creamy to make the thick and creamy leek spread.  The whole tart was topped off with a little more goat cheese, creating a medley of flavors from the sweet tomatoes, warmth from the nutmeg, buttery crust, and tangy goat cheese.  To say I devoured this tart would be an understatement, but don't tell...

The Linky Part hosts this week are:

Tracy at Busy Vegetarian Mom

Robyn at Robyn's View

Angie at A lil Country Sugar

Sarah at Everything in the Kitchen Sink

Michelle at From Calculus to Cupcakes

Marlys at This and That

Lois at  Walking on Sunshine

Lindsey at Family Food Finds

Cindy at Cindys Recipes and Writings

Keira at Luscious Delights

Tami at Food Forays

Go check out their awesome blogs, submit a link to an original recipe of your own below, and share the foodie friends love!

Roasted Poblano Grilled Cheese

I am a proponent of the shop the outsides theory.  What that means is that when I go grocery shopping I do not go into the aisles, just the produce, meat, and dairy section.  The exceptions to the rule are frozen fruits and vegetables and the ethnic aisle.  LOVE the ethnic aisle.  I could spend hours and hundreds on all of the interesting and new flavors found there.  My grocery store also has a little section of hispanic refrigerated products, which include fresh cheeses, corn husks, and arepas.  Arepas are flat round breads that can be made from corn or flour, typically eaten for breakfast or an afternoon snack.

So how fitting is it to use arepas for a grilled cheese!  It's a little grown up, combining roasted poblanos and goat cheese with a slightly sweet creamy corn and cilantro spread.  And also addictive . . . Don't tell anyone but I totally made a second one after polishing off the first.

I roasted the poblanos (and a lone jalapeno) in my oven at 400 F for about 45-50 minutes, turning every 15 minutes or so.  Once the skins were blistered and slightly puffed I pulled the peppers out, put the roasted pepper in a bowl, and covered with plastic wrap.  The steam generated will you to remove the skin, which you should remove along with the core and the seeds.  DO NOT RINSE!  It takes aways all the flavor.  Trust me, the extra work is worth it!

To assemble the grilled cheese, I first toasted up both sides of the arepa in a little butter over medium heat.  The creamy cilantro corn, handful of roasted poblanos, and a healthy dose of goat cheese was spread between the toasted arepas and returned to the pan for another minute or so to melt the cheese.  Addictive slightly spicy grilled cheese, the perfect grown up afterschool snack!

Chipotle Honeyed Pears Over Pea Shoot Salad

I'm literally counting down the days until my farmer's market opens this Saturday, but until then I have to rely on what I see in abundance as to what is good and fresh now.  My grocery store has recently had an influx in all kinds of pears, so naturally I had to pick some up and test them out.  I'm typically not a pear-person, but I loved cooked pears.  With pea shoots out as well as a hunk of goat cheese I needed to use, I came up with a dried chipotle powder and honey combo that would complement these three ingredients.  Plus a little crispy bacon thrown in for good measure, both the crumbled bits on top and a little of the leftover bacon fat to bind a quick vinaigrette.

I ate it just as a quickly thrown together side to some leftover chicken, but this is an elegant layered salad party-perfect for a springtime get together.  Sweet, spicy, crunchy, and satisfying, proving yet again that simple ingredients treated with respect will always give you the best results!

Strawberry Cupcakes with Goat Cheese Frosting and Balsamic Syrup

For some unexplainable reason I've had the combo of fresh strawberries, balsamic vinegar, and goat cheese stuck in my head for the past few weeks.  I see the bounty of (on sale!) strawberries at the grocery store and I just want to make a "Sarah salad": spinach leaves with goat cheese and a balsamic vinaigrette with fruit thrown in for good measure.  And balsamic macerated strawberries over tangy goat cheese.  I think it's just a beautiful combination that everyone needs to experiment with, including myself.  And my latest experiment?  Strawberry cupcakes with goat cheese frosting and a balsamic syrup to drizzle over the top.

Still here?  Okay good, I thought I might scare some of you away.  I am a big believer in mixing savory with sweet for desserts.  It adds an unexpected twist and makes me feel like I'm on Chopped or Iron Chef.  I'll admit, as a resident of a city who loves cupcakes I rarely make my own.  I've got Georgetown Cupcake (original store patron, I used to get free cupcakes and champagne on Thursdays from the boutique next store!), newly added Sprinkles, Hello Cupcake, a food truck devoted to cupcakes, my favorite Baked and Wired, and so many more!  But I couldn't get this idea out of my head, cupcake shops be damned!  I needed to make it!

And you know what?  Worth it.  I should really listen to myself more often!  In the spirit of DC cupcakes, I added lemon zest to a Sprinkles recipe.  The egg white heavy batter ends up giving you an impossibly light yet moist cupcake that I don't think I've ever really noticed at the store (bad food kid!).  I topped with my goat cheese frosting and a strawberry balsamic syrup.  The syrup is much easier to manage if you let it simmer instead of bubbling at the beginning of cooking; boiling balsamic is like culinary napalm to the nostrils but a slow simmer controls the release of the smell and protects your stove from sticky splatter.

The binding factor in all of the parts?  Food processor buzzed up strawberry puree!  Some in the cake, some in the frosting for color and flavor, and to temper the acidity in the balsamic syrup.  The finished product is a gorgeous cupcake that would rival any of the cupcake bakeries, even in my town!

Goat Cheese Cheesecakes with Grapefruit Curd Topping

When I set out to make grapefruit curd, I really wanted it to be pink.  Not vibrantly electric pink, just a tinge.  So I was super disappointed when it turned out the color of a lemon curd, just with a slightly bitter bite at the end.  Delectable, but not pink.  To make up for my yellow disappointment I decided to pair the curd with a cheesecake.  But not just any cheesecake, goat cheese cheesecake to complement the grapefruit bitterness.  And it was an Easter miracle because the cheesecakes topped with the curd looked like a fried egg!

I used Ina's curd method: pulse the sugar with the zest in a food processor, creaming the butter and sugar, adding the eggs and juice, and heating for 10 minutes to thicken, and running through a sieve for a creamy curd.  Easy 20 minute process with a few hours of setting up in the fridge and no slow butter addition.  You can do the double boiler (pot with boiling water and the curd in a bowl on top) but I just cook it on very low heat with my gas stove because I feel like I can control the heat.  I've never had any scrambled eggs come out in the sieve this way, just an embarrassing egg shell piece (oops).

For the cheesecake, I wanted to try something different.  On a whim, I googled goat cheese cheesecake and came upon Anne Burrell's recipe.  Intrigued, I made a half batch to see the effect of goat cheese and sour cream.  As a person who has long used mayo in her cheesecakes (Baby Nutella Cheesecakes), I don't know why I was nervous!  But the end product was SO GOOD, tangy from the goat cheese, fluffy, and only a little sweet, my favorite kind of dessert.

Be sure to bring the ingredients to room temperature before beginning to ensure the fluffy texture.  Made in my recently replaced cupcake pans, it makes about 16 cupcake sized cheesecakes perfect for spring and summer parties!

Spinach and Goat Cheese Pizza with Roasted Garlic

I recently joined a yoga studio next to a whole foods (cliche, I know).  This is a dangerous combination, but it reminded me of this AMAZING frozen pizza crust they sell.  It's a great versatile product that doesn't have the typical preservatives found in ready-made crusts.  I created a "white sauce" with crushed roasted garlic and topped it with caramelized onions, spinach, and goat cheese.

Roasted Duck Tacos

I came up with this recipe for Cinco de Mayo with Jose Andres and Rick Bayless in mind. Really flavorful and interesting components mixing together to make something even better.  It combines the roasted duck, the summer creamed corn, the onion and apple quick pickle, and a few fun extras