Maybe it is the onset of cold weather, but I have been cooking and thinking about food a lot more than usual lately! Here is a quick lunch or light dinner tart that I made yesterday that came out quite well, and you can make it in about 20 minutes, largely unattended. It's a great easy mid-week recipe than can be altered in many ways, depending on what you have in the fridge. I made mine with store-bought pastry, but of course it would be even better if you had the time to make your own.
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll out pastry and place it on a baking sheet. Saute chopped leeks in butter until they soften and just begin to brown. Spread ingredients evenly in the center of the rolled out pastry, leaving about 1.5 inches around the edge to fold over. I used fig preserves and spread them thinly over the bottom of the crust, then crumbled a generous amount of fresh goat cheese over that, and then added the sauteed leeks.
Fold the edges of the pastry over your filling and press folds to hold like so:
Place tart in the oven for 15-18 minutes, or until pastry in golden brown and the tart is hot throughout.
I served the tart with a mixed green salad of baby lettuces with a simple vinaigrette and a Picpoul Blanc from Tablas Creek Vineyard. It was really quite delicious I thought! And you could definitely modify this in a hundred ways depending on what you have on hand. Think blue cheese, pear, and walnut with a baby arugula salad? I think I might try that next!
