Peach Tart with Vanilla Almond Crust

Full disclosure: I sat down to write this post the other night and I had nothing. The words just weren't coming. I believe the first thing I came up with was, "Oh, hello. I didn't see you come in."

What?

Then it was, "This is my peach tart."

Then I settled on a picture-heavy post with a feeble introduction. Finally I scrubbed the whole thing. I told myself this blog could go downhill fast if I start pulling shit like that. My goal here was to give the people something nice to look at and something nice to read with every post, and if I couldn't do that, then I should wait until I could.

But I was concerned. Why was I struggling? Was it because I was rushed and zapped of creativity? Was it because, a measly 18 posts in, I've recognized a certain futility in this blog and become disillusioned by the whole thing? Or could it be that the peach tart, photogenic as it was, didn't offer much fodder for blog talk?

I won't leave you hanging: I think it was the first one. Because really, it was an exciting venture for us. My mom bought her first food processor for the occasion, and I bought my first springform pan. And I admit, I not long ago challenged the necessity of a food processor with a certain amount of scorn ("We don't need no stinking food processor" - I think that's how it went), and I do believe one can get by just fine without a springform pan. But! Well, but nothing. Kitchen tools are fun.

And I haven't lost purpose either. I just wasn't having fun the other night. Now I'm having fun. I have a cup of hot cocoa, and I have something to say.

Vanilla wafers, almonds, and sugar: the stuff of the crust

Butter brings it together

Cream cheese, sour cream, sugar, and an egg make the filling

Bake for 15 and freeze for 15

Everyone held their breath as I unlatched the pan and slipped it off...

Tart unbound!

Do you remember that Friends episode where Monica is catering a party at her parents' house and her mom has frozen lasagnas, just in case Monica screws something up? Well, we had my grandparents over for dinner and dessert (the tart), and my mom bought and made frozen cookies. Now this is misleading, because my mom didn't doubt me or the tart. She just wasn't sure if my grandpa would eat it. She's a lovely lady.

Let the record show, though, that grandpa chose the tart. And after he finished his first piece he informed me that the remaining cut was a bit uneven, and he would be glad to straighten it up by eating the unruly protrusion. Thanks, grandpa.

Crunchy crust, creamy filling, and juicy, slightly acidic fruit: it was le piece de resistance. And it had a story after all.

Petit Pain au Chocolat

Chocolate-filled rolls: that was my next bread endeavor. I had my own illusions for what they would be like; I had experienced similar pastries at PAUL in London and at a tiny patisserie in the boulanger's promised land itself: France. It was there that I double-fisted a croissant and a pain au chocolat and discovered the ambrosial apex of the bread and chocolate rendezvous. So when I began my petits pains, I imagined soft semi-sweet chocolate enveloped in warm, buttery croissant-like bread. But the recipe didn't call for croissant dough - rather, I was to prepare brioche dough.

We made the dough the night before because brioche dough must be chilled when you work with it. It's a beautiful, sticky rich dough, thanks to five eggs and two sticks of butter.

After all the flour is added the dough is still sticky and in no shape for kneading. So instead of the push-turn-pull, B.C. introduced us to the pull-and-throw. Grab the dough in one hand, pull a large handful of it about 14" above the bowl, then throw it back "with considerable force." At first the action seemed futile - the dough was sticky and uncooperative - but it quickly became malleable. The gluten strands became stronger and more resilient with each throw, delivering a before-the-eyes demonstration of dough's metamorphosis.

 My mom and I gave the dough hell for twenty minutes (tag-teaming at five-minute intervals - not easy work!) then gave it a well-deserved three hour rest in front of the fire before stirring it down and putting it to rest in the fridge overnight.

The next day we found our dough refreshed and raring to be rolled out. It wasn't entirely easy, though. It took a bit of patience and a lot of flour to coax the dough into the specified length, width, and thickness. Don't be fooled by the photo - it looks so agreeable, doesn't it?

And now we really have fun. Enter chocolat.

After the chocolate is nestled inside and the brioche pinched shut, an egg and milk bath sets them up for a deep golden brown finish.

No, they didn't taste like my pains au chocolat from London and Paris - they didn't even look like them. But I have to respect brioche dough and how it comes to be, and I have to respect that, alas, I'm not a French baker - yet.

Croissants to come.

Lemon, Parsley & Pears

And butter. So much butter.

Last week my boyfriend and I were tucking into lemon pepper chicken with sweet red peppers and asparagus when I realized that he has cooked me dinner several times now (that was one of them) and I have cooked him dinner zero times. In my quick defense, I did make him a kick-ass chocolate peanut butter cake for his birthday, but come on - I've never made someone dinner before? Well now, I had to do something about that.

So I looked through cookbooks, browsed recipes online...and came up with what I thought was a simple, light menu. For dinner it would be pasta with parsley and parmesan. Before I go any further, I should mention Megan's fun food lesson of the week: there are two types of parsley. Flat leaf parsley, also known as Italian parsley, seems to be ideal in most situations. It's bolder, as they say. Unfortunately, I saved my parsley research for after I got back from the grocery store with curly leaf parsley. And I was going to use it anyway - bold schmold - but a lack of lemons found me back at the store where I ran into flat leaf parsley for 99 cents. So, there we go.

Dinner
Cooked spaghetti and tossed it with - brace yourself - just short of a stick and a half of unsalted butter, chopped parsley, parmesan cheese, fresh lemon juice, and a bit of garlic salt.

Holy butter! I had a hard time melting 12 tablespoons of butter, but one pound of spaghetti is a LOT, and butter melts down quite a bit. In the end, the parsley and lemon shone through, making the pasta light and fresh with little bursts of the sharp parmesan. Though the butter refused any of the spotlight in the pasta, it greeted us when we reached the bottom of our plates, reminding us that there was indeed some fat in this thing.

Dessert
Halved and peeled Bosc pears and arranged them cut side up in a baking dish. Drizzled with lemon juice and sprinkled with vanilla sugar (I mixed 1 tsp vanilla extract with 1/4 c sugar, but I could've used a bit more vanilla). Dotted with butter and put a couple tablespoons of water in the bottom of the pan before putting it in a 375 degree oven. Roasted for 30 minutes, turned the pears, then roasted for another 15-20 minutes. We topped our pears with vanilla ice cream and drizzled the juice from the bottom of the pan over the ice cream. Oh my.

Lying in bed that night, I could feel my body's confusion as it tried to make sense of all the butter I'd just consumed. I could feel it asking, What am I supposed to do with all of this? If you'd like to know what this is like, simply incorporate 1.5 sticks of butter into your evening meal. And you know what goes really well with butter? Lemon, parsley and pears.