Sunday Tart

Do you have one of these in your kitchen?

Quiches and egg tarts are one of those dishes that lie upon a gender divide...

I find nothing more tempting at the bakery than a pretty tart filled with egg, salmon, asparagus, cheese, tomatoes - you name it! The fluted pastry is just so appealing to me.

However, the idea of quiche is somewhat repulsive to my husband. Seeing as it is used as a prime punishment for these gentlemen in The Doghouse, I figure he might not be the only one.

I was pleased the other week to find a recipe for a tart that I was able to re-jig and that my husband actually liked. And, liked enough to request a second batch this weekend.

In terms of the do-ability of this type of recipe, you do need to have some basic pastry experience, but of all the tart and pie shells I've made over the years, this was by far the easiest. We had guests on Sunday, so I made the tart up the night before and just re-heated it in the oven. The time in is about 2 hours start to finish and the ingredients are pretty flexible and pretty affordable. If you're hoping to impress without a mess, use a frozen Tenderflake pie shell from the grocery store, keep the measurements for the fillings the same and use a no-cook combo of fillings like ham and cheese. 

If you were to buy something like this at a bakery in my area, the cost would be around $17.

Sadly, or perhaps happily (?), here is all that is left of mine to photograph!

You can find the recipe on my recipe page here, adapted from Chatelaine.

DIY Rating: 

7 for the "adapted Chatelaine recipe" version

9 for the "use a frozen pie shell" version

Overall, the impress your guests factor is high and the effort is only moderate if you do it yourself, but if you don't like baking, go for "buy and lie", just remember to hide the bakery box!