Tricolour tarts

Tricolor tart

Cooking up something one considers a 'difficult' recipe always gives that smug satisfaction. I'm no great shakes at baking, except that I follow the instructions diligently. That, combined with sensible substitutions, has always yielded me edible results. ie. no one has wanted to play bouncing ball with my muffins or use my cakes as a cheap alternative to dental extraction !!

I've baked muffins, cookies, breads, cakes but tarts are one thing I had never tried before- probably because the amount of butter that goes into making the tart shell has never been within my 'healthy' cooking boundaries. But what the hell- sometimes it's the pride of baking a beauty, that takes more priority than counting calories. As the same time as I was having those 'tarty' thoughts at the back of my mind- I came across Estelle's Basic Tart shell recipe- which seemed like a breeze. Ideas for the filling were dime a dozen, but I just decided to use stuff that needed to be used up from my refrigerator.


Armed with a couple of 4 inch tart shells and some fresh veggies and some creative juices to top it all- and the result was these two beauties,a little rustic looking though due to the not-so-perfect shape of the shells.

The twins emerging from the oven

Ingredients:

1/2 recipe Easy Quiche Crust (Actually this was a little less than half-froze the remaining dough)
My substitutions were one cup whole wheat flour and 3/4 cup all purpose flour instead of
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
Half the quantity of butter suggested
1 tsp of thick yogurt instead of creme fraiche

The dough was then spread into two, four inch tins.

For filling-
1 red onion-sliced
1 green pepper-deseeded, sliced
1 ripe tomato-deseeded, sliced
Handful of sweet corn kernels
3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1/2 T dried Italian herb mix (Oregano, basil and thyme )
1 tsp Paprika
1/2 tsp salt
2 T Mozarella cheese-grated
1 egg white for glaze / 1 T milk
1 tsp freshly chopped basil
1 tsp olive oil

Method:
Heat the oil in a non stick pan. Add the chopped garlic, saute for 1/2 min. Don't let it turn brown / golden.
Add the remaining ingredients except cheese, egg and basil.
Saute the veggies for 3-4 min on a medium flame. They should be soft yet maintain their shape.
Fill the stuffing into the tarts. Brush with egg while / milk.
Sprinkle 1 T of grated cheese on each tart. Place in oven at 200 C for 5 min or so, until cheese melts.
Garnish with freshly chopped basil.

Note:
The shell was not too crispy and flaky because I didn't use the quanity of suggested butter. The herbed veggies made an excellent filling along with the melted Mozarella.
Serve as a side with pasta or tomato-basil soup.
You could even make these as tartlets and serve them as party snacks / appetizers.
More the number of colours in your food, the richer it is in anti-oxidants. There's yellow, red and green here and that's good enough a reason for me to send this for Cate's ARF Tuesdays.