Let me level with you. Life currently is not so dreamy at the
moment. I’ve neither had my cake
nor eaten it recently, should you want a food-related idiom. In fact, if we’re using cake as an
example here, you might say I was holding a big bowl of batter and dropped it. My life batter has splattered everywhere.
I’m still cleaning up the little bits from underneath cabinets and between small crevices. So I don’t have a lot
to say except that I'm staying away from recipes that contain batter at the moment. No need to let my metaphorical life become a true kitchen disaster.
I'm starting from scratch. I'm going back to basics. Back to plums. And back to Ina Garten. Her tart recipe was the first dessert I successfully made. It's the kind of recipe that your cookbook opens up to because the pages have been creased and spread so many times.
The recipe is easy and it delivers every time, which is more than I can say about a lot of other aspects of my life at the moment. I'm confident this won't always be the case. And, while I love tarts, I do have more to live for. I can only hope there will be even better recipes ahead. You could say, the best is yet to plum.
Rosemary Plum Tart
Adapted from Ina Garten
Ingredients:
2 cups flour
3/4 cup walnuts, chopped
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, lightly packed
3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, diced (1.5 sticks)
1 egg yolk
1 tbsp rosemary, minced
2 pounds ripe Italian prune plums, sliced
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine flour, walnuts, and brown sugar in a large bowl; add butter, egg yolk, and rosemary and mix by hand until the mixture comes together. Press 3/4 of the mixture into the bottom of a 9" tart pan (or spring form pan). Spread plum slices over the crumb mixture in circular pattern and sprinkle the remaining butter mixture over top. Bake for 40-50 minutes until the tart is bubbling and slightly brown.
Makes 1 tart
Notes:
-Lavender leaves also works quite nicely here, as well. (If you know my blog, you know I love the stuff.)
-This tart is best eaten the day it's made.
-If Italian prune plums aren't available, regular run-of-the-mill plums work just fine too.
