LEMON SHORTBREAD TART

This one is REALLY easy, primarily because 1) the crust is a breeze to throw together, and 2) I used a jar of pre-made lemon curd from Trader Joe's. I promised myself I'm going to make my own lemon curd next time, especially since I watched Martha Stewart do it, and it looked so easy! Last night, however, I saw this jar of lemon curd I had bought some time ago at Trader Joe's, and it occurred to me that lemon curd would taste really good with shortbread! SO, until I update this later with my own homemade lemon curd, here is the recipe:

(Note that this is pretty much the same shortbread tart crust recipe from my other tarts, with just a few modifications.)

Ingredients:

13 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup organic sugar

1 tsp pure almond extract

1 1/2 cup organic unbleached AP flour

1 cup finely ground pecans

1 jar Trader Joe's Lemon Curd
Powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

With a mixer, cream together the softened butter and the sugar until smooth and thoroughly mixed. 

Add the almond extract and allow to mix through. 

In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and 3/4 cup of the finely ground almonds and whisk together. With the mixer, slowly add these dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture a cup or so at a time until thoroughly blended. The dough may look a bit grainy and loose, but don't worry...it will press into a dish or pan nicely.

Measure out about 1/2 cup of the dough mixture and place on a plate and just set in the freezer. This will be used for the topping later.

Press the remaining dough evenly into the bottom of a nine inch tart pan or quiche pan and slightly up the sides. I use the bottom of an aluminum measuring cup for this purpose. (Thanks again, Martha Stewart!)

Pour the entire jar of Trader Joe's lemon curd over the crust and spread evenly to the edges. Get the the crust mixture from the freezer and crumble it evenly over the top of the filling.

Bake your tart at 350 for about 35-40 minutes, depending upon your oven. Remove when filling is nicely set and the edges of the tart crust are golden brown. Allow to cool somewhat.

Sift some powdered sugar over the top of your tart and serve.

'SPIRALIZED' SWEET POTATOES, BEEF AND BLACK BEAN CASSEROLE

The Paderno Spiralizer opened up a whole new world for us in terms of cooking and eating vegetables! It's amazing, first of all, how quickly and easily some veggies can be prepared for cooking, and second, how cutting them in different ways suddenly influences all sorts of creativity in the actually cooking and constructing a dish!

The following recipe started with 'spiralized' sweet potatoes!

Note also that the 'house seasoning' is my standard mixture of garlic powder (not salt), onion powder (not salt), and a good quality seasoned salt. (Lawry's) I keep this in a large spice jar in the cabinet all the time. It's great on roasted vegetables, popcorn, even buttered rolls! It's very versatile in everyday cooking!
House seasoning:
1/2 cup garlic powder
1/3 cup onion powder
1/4 cup seasoned salt

In chronological order:
Preheat oven to 350

3 medium sweet potatoes, spiral cut
3 tbsp coconut oil
2 tbsp house seasoning (see note above)
Place the spiralized sweet potatoes in a large bowl. Toss with the coconut oil. Sprinkle the house seasoning over them and toss again to spread the seasoning evenly throughout. Place the seasoned sweet potatoes in a 9 x13 baking dish. (Stoneware bakeware works great for this!) Place in preheated oven and roast for approximately 35-40 minutes, or until just tender,  stirring once about halfway through the baking time.



  
MEANWHILE:
1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
1 pound ground beef (low fat)
1 tsp garlic powder
2 cans diced tomatoes (I like mine less chunky, so I ran them through the food processor slightly)
1 tbsp chili powder
1 tbsp cumin
1 tsp smoky paprika
1 tsp red pepper (more or less to taste)
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp prepared mustard
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 
1 can black beans

1 cup shredded white (or yellow) cheddar cheese (Cabot's Sharp Vermont White Cheddar works GREAT for this dish!)

Heat the olive oil in a skillet on medium heat and add onions. Saute until translucent. Add the ground beef and brown completely. Drain. To this beef mixture, add the garlic powder, tomatoes, chili powder, cumin, paprika, red pepper, brown sugar, prepared mustard, and Worcestershire sauce. Mix well. Add the black beans and stir to mix.

When the sweet potatoes have finished roasting, pull them from the oven and pour the beef and been mixture over them evenly. Return to the oven and bake for about 10 more minutes. When you remove from the oven for the second time, while the casserole is still very hot, spread the shredded cheese evenly over the top and allow it to melt slightly before serving.

This is great accompanied by good quality multi-grain tortilla chips and avocado!

ALMOND SHORTBREAD FIG TART

Almond Shortbread Fig Tart

I recently found a recipe online for an apricot jam shortbread tart. It looked delicious, but I'm not a big fan of apricot jam. I looked over the recipe a bit, and decided to set out to change it up a bit. I try to improve on most recipes by lowering fats, sugars, and calories. I also try to use organic, non-GMO, and unprocessed ingredients whenever possible.

A few examples:

I always use butter these days. No more margarine for me! If I can find organic butter, I get that. Butter and cheese are my dairy guilty pleasures! 

I always use organic sugar when cooking and baking. It's easy to find, and it just makes sense to me.

I also trade out regular flour for unbleached organic all-purpose flour. Sometimes, I even mix half-and-half with organic wheat flour. I can also sometimes add things to the flour for flavor, fiber, etc.

So, in this case, I turned the apricot tart into this delicious Almond Shortbread Fig Tart.  And later, I altered this one and morphed it into the Pecan Shortbread Strawberry Tart. 

Ingredients:

12 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup organic sugar

1/2 tsp pure almond extract

1 1/2 cup organic unbleached AP flour

1 cup finely ground almonds, separated (separate out 1/4 cup to use later)

1/2 cup fig jam (Trader Joe's has an AWESOME fig jam!)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

With a mixer, cream together the softened butter and the sugar until smooth and thoroughly mixed. 

Add the almond extract and allow to mix through. 

In a large bowl, mix the flour, salt, and 3/4 cup of the finely ground almonds and whisk together. With the mixer, slowly add these dry ingredients to the butter and sugar mixture a cup or so at a time until thoroughly blended. The dough may look a bit grainy and loose, but don't worry...it will press into a dish or pan nicely.

Measure out about 1/2 cup of the dough and place on a plate and just set in the freezer. This will be used for the topping later.

Press the remaining dough evenly into the bottom of a nine inch tart pan or quiche pan and slightly up the sides. I use the bottom of an aluminum measuring cup for this purpose. (Thanks again, Martha Stewart!) 

Spread the fig jam over the surface of the tart dough evenly, leaving the edges exposed slightly. 

Mix the 1/2 cup of the dough you had set in the freezer with the 1/4 cup of the ground almonds using a whisk, so as to make an evenly crumbly mix. Sprinkle this dough and almond crumble over the top of the fig jam evenly. 

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 40 minutes, or until the crust edges are nicely browned and the jam is set.

INCIDENTALLY......I made a simple little 'drizzle' of almond milk, powdered sugar, and almond extract and chilled it. It's delightful to drizzle over the tart just before it's served!
 

IT WAS TIME!

Yup! It was time! I'm always cooking and baking, and I love nothing more than sharing good foods and recipes with others! SO....rather than copying and pasting my recipes into emails, Facebook postings and messages, and so forth, it was time to put together my own blog and start sharing some of these food ideas, the good ones, AND the bad ones (hopefully there will be more of the former!) with everyone!

Tonight I made a really nice Pecan Shortbread Strawberry Tart that I am anxious for you to see and try! In true confessions, I must tell you that much of this I made without a recipe, but I wrote down, to the best of my knowledge, all the ingredients and instructions. I sincerely hope that you will ask questions, as well as notify me if you have any difficulties, with any of my recipes. Perhaps even more, I hope you will share your successes and let me know when things turned out well!

Pecan Shortbread Strawberry Tart

Pecan Shortbread Strawberry Tart

First, let me say that I keep fruit compotes…blueberry, strawberry, apple, usually….around the house a lot. We use a tablespoon or two mixed with vanilla yogurt to eat by itself, or use as a dip for other fruits. To make a fruit compote, I simply mix cut-up fruit with an appropriate amount of organic sugar, and sometimes, as in the case of apples, I add spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg.

To make the strawberry compote that I used in this recipe, I cut up two quarts of strawberries, added about 1.5 cups organic sugar, and cooked until very soft and mushy…probably 25-30 minutes. You have to stir regularly to keep from sticking, and just keep an eye on it. Once it’s cooked sufficiently, I use either a potato masher (for courser fruit) or my immersion blender (for smoother blend) to further macerate the fruit. The two quarts of strawberries rendered a little more than a quart of compote. I store it in a mason jar in the fridge. It actually lasts a long time…although we usually eat it up pretty fast.

For the shortbread crust

13 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

½ cup organic sugar (you can add a tablespoon or so for some extra sweetness)

½ tsp. pure almond extract

1 ½ cups unbleached AP organic flour

1 cup finely ground pecans (separate out ¼ cup)

1/8 tsp. sea salt

Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixer bowl, cream together the softened butter and the sugar.  Add the almond flavoring. 

Meanwhile measure out the flour, salt, and ¾ cups of the ground pecans. Whisk together well. When the butter and sugar are thoroughly mixed, begin to add the flour mixture a cup or so at a time until thoroughly mixed together. The dough may look a little grainy and loose, but no matter.  

 Measure out about a half cup of the dough mixture and just put it on a small plate and set it in the freezer. (this will be used for topping later.)  Put the rest of the dough mixture into a 9 inch tart pan or quiche pan and press into the bottom evenly and up the sides slightly. I use the bottom of an aluminum measuring cup to help in this process!

Spread about ¾ cup of the fruit compote or any kind of jam (more or less to taste) over the top of the crust. (Of course, then you'll have the rest of this wonderful compote to use in other delicious ways!)

Take the crust mixture you placed in the freezer earlier and mix well with the ¼ cup (more or less) of the pecans you saved earlier. It should be crumbly if you use a fork or whisk. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the compote or jam on the shortbread.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes, or until crust is browned and fruit is set.