#FreshTastyValentines: Tomato Tart

So.

Welcome to #FreshTastyValentines, a week's worth of recipes that are healthier for tempting those you love!  I'm thrilled to have joined with the other bloggers and our sponsors for a fun event!

My first recipe is from Rachael's blog, Pizza Rossa, who happens to be my Secret Recipe Club partner this month.  I couldn't just feature one of the recipes from her lovely blog - I featured a second that was a perfect entree for in which we didn't miss the meat.
I have made a similar tart to this in my preblogging days, but it used sliced tomatoes and minced garlic.  I was intrigued by the idea of roasting the tomatoes and garlic first.  Plus with basil and lots of cheese, how could this possibly be bad?
I present to you now from Pizza Rossa, Roasted Tomato Tart:

Ingredients:
Pastry for 1- 9" pie (I use the Tenderflake recipe)
2 lbs cherry tomatoes
5 cloves garlic, peeled but whole
Olive oil
1 Tbsp Dried Basil (I used Gourmet Garden Lightly Dried Basil)
Mozzarella (about 8 oz)
1/4 c Parmesan, shredded

Method:
1.  Preheat oven to 300F.  Wash and dry tomatoes.  In a large bowl, toss tomatoes, basil and garlic cloves in oil before pouring onto a rimmed baking sheet.  Sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Roast at 300F for about an hour until tomatoes are soft and the skins are splitting.  Reserve garlic in a small bowl and drain tomatoes, reserving juice for another use.
2.  Turn oven up to 400F.  Roll out pastry for your pie pan and blind bake at 400F for 20 minutes.  Then remove parchment and pie weights.  Bake further for 10 minutes at 400F.
3.  Mash garlic cloves and spread over the bottom of the pie crust.  Line the crust with thinly sliced mozzarella.  Top with drained tomaotes, more sliced mozzarella, and then Parmesan.  Bake pie at 400 F for 15 minutes, then raise temperature to 425 for 5 minutes, until cheese starts to brown.  Let set briefly before slicing to serve.

From Pizza Rossa

I know I've said before that I really like Gourmet Gardens' lightly dried herbs, and I do.  They are so easy to use, and have wonderful flavour.  I used 1 Tbsp of basil in this, but I totally could have used more.

I also could have used more garlic.  These smelled sooooo good roasting.  The garlic mashed easily after an hour in the oven, and as opposed to the last time I roasted cherry tomatoes, these weren't burned to a crisp when I removed them from the oven.

But as much better as I was with the tomatoes, I still suck at pie crust. This was the last out of my freezer, and it seemed a smaller amount than the others.  It cracked and I had to patch it a lot in the pan.  I was also afraid that it would be too low on the left side, but it wasn't.

I sliced bar mozzarella to make this, but fresh would be wonderful!  We had lots of strings pulling up when we cut into this.

And with the Parmesan, it was pretty before going in the oven to melt the cheese and heat everything through.

Here's the final product.  It was delicious.  I served with a simple green salad.  J hadn't been sure what to think when I announced I was making this, but he told me it would be worth making again.  Thanks Rachael!  I'm glad I got to make 2 recipes from your wonderful blog!!





Full Disclosure:  I received the Gourmet Garden Lightly Dried Basil for participating in #Fresh Tasty Valentines.  Feel free to use whatever you have on-hand.  I received no additional compensation for this post; all comments are 100% accurate and 100% my own.