A Tale of Two Tarts

I mentioned earlier that I had a failure involving my delicious oven-roasted tomatoes. This is that failure plus my later success. Not everything works out in my kitchen, as much as I would like it to. I got my idea for these tarts from some over-priced ones available at a certain food store in a certain area where I used to work. Though tasty, my coworker said that I could make them and they would be better. I thought so too.







After making the tomatoes, I got to making these tarts. I figured I’d make four big ones, so Aaron and I could have leftovers. I made the pastry dough (previously seen here), grilled some onions, cut up my tomatoes, chopped some garlic, sliced sausage and grated cheddar cheese for Aaron’s, crumbled goat cheese, and set them aside to stuff the dough. I rolled the dough out, filled it, folded it over the stuffing, and baked them sort of like pies.



For whatever reason, they just didn’t work. The dough was flaky, but not tasty. The insides were fine. Overall, not terrible, but definitely not great. I ended up taking the inside out of the second one and using it to make a delicious grilled cheese sandwich. I feel like cell phone pictures are appropriate for these as they are also not terrible, but really not great.





Anyway, I wouldn’t be defeated! I changed tacks and went for a tart more like this one, which was featured in Renai’s blog. Instead of doing pastry dough, though, I went for galette dough because it is wonderful and really does make for a fabulous tart. I did exactly what I did before for the other tarts and got these delicious ones instead. Success! I would definitely make either of these as an appetizer for a fancy dinner party or a regular party. Very tasty indeed!

As for my original idea, I shall return to it someday. I like the idea of it and it could be that it was just a bad day for pastry. I’ve made that dough before, obviously, and it usually comes out just about perfect, so I’m willing to try again. Or maybe I can use the galette dough and fold them into pockets. I’ll experiment and report back. After all, although not everything goes right in my kitchen, it usually does.