Sweet Tarts

Siestas! Mom has me worked silly today, so if my writing is that of a four-year-old, please do forgive me. As of today, to the praise of His glory, I will begin my very last chapter of research for the upcoming Esther bible study. I can’t wait to see what the final chapter has in store for me over the next few weeks.

Well, on a darker note, bless your hearts for having to read the previous post about spilled animal entrails. I didn’t even know what “entrails” meant, but after consulting dictionary.com, I was, like you, completely and utterly grossed out. To redeem our blog, I thought it would be timely to post something blissful, yes, something heavenly, and yes, so visually stimulating that you may never think of animal entrails ever again.

Well, in light of the wonderful summer weather, I have been making it my duty to learn everything I can about fresh fruit tarts. Yes, my compulsion for research goes beyond biblical studies to simple, everyday tasks. I am sort of like my mom, I can find joy in reading the label on a ketchup bottle. I have always been in awe of the fresh fruit tarts at places like La Madeleine and Whole Foods, not to mention Paris herself. Has it ever bothered you that the French totally monopolize all the amazing looking desserts? Well, I will stop the banter and take you on a little photo journey of my culinary dealings as of late. The picture below records the very place where my cooking obsession was born.

The Fitzpatricks' humble kitchen/dining room.



This was my very first tart - fresh chunky apples glazed on a puff pastry. Served with whipped cream, this thing was wonderful. My husband sort of stared at it like Smeagol stared at “the precious” in Lord of the Rings.



This was my second tart- a fresh mixed fruit tart on a homemade shortbread crust with vanilla bean pastry cream.





It was so fun to actually buy a real vanilla pod and scrape all the vanilla pulp out of it- I finally learned why vanilla bean ice cream has those little black specks in it! Oh the joys of learning! I have to say, this was not the easiest thing I have ever done but if you are looking for something fun and challenging to do on a quiet Saturday morning, then this fruit tart is a blast. I coincidentally took the fruit tart with me to dinner at one of Colin’s co-worker’s homes that evening…almost like I just happened to have a homemade fruit tart lying around my kitchen. Oh come on, please cut me some slack because after the two hours (standing I might add) it took to prepare it and the additional hour it took to clean the flour from the ceiling, I so needed the affirmation!

If any of you Siestas are interested in these recipes, then send me a shout out and if there is enough demand, I will try to get my head out of the book of Esther and post them up!