Princess Tofu

I was walking to my car one day in my teens when I heard some frantic chirping – the kind that comes from small hungry little birdies. I was a bit more than shocked to find a nest on the ground where it had fallen from the tree above. I tried saving those chicks. I’m no mother bird.

I was told to always leave little birds alone because mother birds will not come back to the nest if you disturb them… Is this true? My favorite nests to find are always empty because somewhere some little birds are all grown up. Spring is beautiful.

A few weeks ago right before Easter, I was making a lovely pizza with garlic thread – thinly sliced green garlic green garlic. I love charred green garlic. This pizza uses green garlic pesto, peas, asparagus, and eggs – all the great things that you should eat this time of year… This photo depicts a pastry version that is overly decadent dinner, but I’m sure it will also make a great brunch dish.

To build a nest

Gather: 1 Dufour Puff Pastry, 1 cup of shaved asparagus, 1 cup of green garlic thread, green garlic pesto, 1/4 c blanched fresh peas, grated mozzarella cheese, grated parmesan cheese, soft boiled eggs.

Assemble: Using a large bowl and pizza cutter, cut a round pastry circle – cut strips out of the discards (the puff pastry is square) and layer them around the edges to resemble a bird nest. I was very loose with my design… Then, evenly spread 1/4 cup pesto with fresh blanched peas on top of the nest surface. Sprinkle some parmesan and mozzarella on top. Lastly, weave a bird’s nest out of layers of cheese, asparagus, and green garlic (you can also do this on a chopping board and then slide it onto the pastry when done). You will have to re-chill your pastry for 30 minutes before baking.

Bake: Preheat oven to 375 and bake until golden brown. Serve immediately with soft boiled eggs.

Granola. The word crunchy comes to mind, like walking on fresh fallen snow-covered leaves.

Breakfasting on granola is a contemplative effort because granola doesn’t try to please, it definitely doesn’t sound pretty, and it certainly is not polite. I have resisted granola because I am vegetarian, partially because I don’t like to be placed into comfortable categories that makes me “like to eat” certain fares. I’m talking about you kale! However, I did make this granola. Worst yet, I even gave some of it away – jars of it in tidy boxes by means of jet fuel . I think that makes our relation at least amicable?

I used to think granola was a specifically summer thing. It’s refreshing with cold milk and not nearly as comforting as warm Irish oats or creamed wheat. However. However, I think warm milk is amazing. Also, there’re all sorts of milk that deserves experimentation and attention, like flax milk, or rice milk and almond …. I digress.

Granola. This granola, my granola, comes from a series of experiments and standing in grocery aisles staring at plain cereals. How I came to bags of puffed millet I can’t exactly recall but I think it was in Atlanta in some organic grocer, the kind that carries seeds that most people feed to birds. I put those in my granola too. I like birds.

This recipe is “safe”. I’ve thrown in many things and it comes out perfectly well-adjusted to its new composites. I like to think that when it’s time to clean out my pantry of all the grains, all the nuts and seeds, and all the dried up bits of fruit, I can make something like this to share and eat on mornings when I don’t feel like poaching eggs.

Granola Recipe

inspired by The Splendid Grain

dry mix

1 c pistachio

1/2 c pepitas ( I like the raw green looking kind)

2 c puffed millet

1 c rolled oats

1/2 c sunflower seeds

1/2 c flax seeds

1/2 c hemp seeds

wet mix

1/2 c honey (Can use maple syrup if vegan, but granola will be less clumpy)

1/4 c refined sesame oil (this has more nutty flavored than the heated oils)

1/2 ts vanilla sea salt

1/2 ts ground cinnamon

1/2 ts ground cardamom

1 ts almond extract

1 ts orange extract

Fruit

1 c dried raisins or dates

+ Preheat oven to 320F

+ Mix the wet and dry mix in separate bowls. Combine the two mixes an spread onto a large cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

+ Place into heated oven and stir every 10 minutes. The granola is done in about 25-30 minutes. do not overcook. You should have a crumbly sheet of granola.

+ Toss the dried fruit on top of the granola and allow to cool completely before storing in an air tight container.

I can only imagine how many terrible childhood okra stories are out there… slimy, mushy, overcooked dramas that line the plates of discontent. That’s why I like to throw okra around my kitchen and see who runs away first. Honestly though, while most people carry these dreadful vegetable experiences around for a lifetime, I prefer to hang with adventuresome eaters who climb the mountain of plant phobias by eating their way through food fears.

That said, my experience tells me the best way to make amends with strange vegetables tend to be when they change their guises and make an appearance in something familiar like a cute tartelette. Anyone who runs away from a tart doesn’t deserve to eat animals because these tarts are mostly harmless –  however, I put serrano peppers in them, so they might kick you a bit when you bite into them. There’s also a lot of corn in this recipe – it’s corny in all the ways you’d want it to be really – a corn crust you don’t have to pre-bake and fresh corn kernals!

Earlier this summer I had a great time grilling okras, but I also eat them raw as often as I can find them. Chilled, raw, and tender! Young, uncooked okras are less slimy this way and their crunchy greenness is refreshing compared to typical gumbos and fried okras. Additionally, my favorite sushi restaurant in this city, Ryoko, serves the best okra tempura. It’s so perfect, I don’t bother trying to make my own.

This recipe was inspired by Maria Speck’s Artichoke-Rosemary Tart and uses the same crust.

Polenta Crust

1 1/2 c. vegetable broth

1 1/4 c. water

1/2 ts. salt

1 1/4 c. polenta or coarse grits

1/2 c. shredded parmesan ~ 2.5 oz

1 large egg, @ room temperature

1/4 ts. freshly ground pepper

Filling

1 c. yogurt

2 oz. goat cheese

1/2 c. parmesan cheese

2 large eggs

1/4 ts. salt

1/4 ts. freshly ground pepper

2 TB cilantro

1 corn on the cob, removed from cob and steamed

1 scallion, thinly sliced

1 serrano, thinly sliced

1 c. tender young okras shorter than 4″, sliced @1/4″

+ Make the crust by bringing the water and broth to a boil. Add salt and dissolve. Slowly pour in the polenta in a thin stream while whisking for 30 additional seconds. Turn the heat to low and cook for 10 minutes, stirring at least every two minutes to prevent sticking.

+ Turn off heat completely and cover polenta for 10 minutes. Stir in cheese, egg, and pepper.

+ Grease your mini tart pans with olive oil or give it a liberal spray of non-stick spray. Dip your wooden spoons in water and distribute evenly between 7* mini tart pans (I just did two batches using 4 pans) – this is about 2.5 TB of polenta per tartelette. Press the polenta evenly onto the bottom of the tart pans.

+ After 15 minutes, fill a bowl with a bit of water to wet your fingers and press the polenta into the sides and bottoms creating an even crust. This part is messy, tedious, and rather fun.

+ Create the custard by mixing together yogurt, cheeses, egs, salt, pepper, corn and cilantro. Pour the blended custard into the tart pans, leaving a 1/2″ gap from the crust’s top. Distribute three slices of serrano peppers per tart and fill in the remainder the raw okras and slices of scallions.

+ Preheat oven to 325 °F and bake tartelettes for about 10 minutes, or until the custard is firm.

The grape harvest is an exciting time of year in northern California so I am once again revisiting Tuscany for another culinary inspiration. I found this dish, grape focaccia, while perusing Nigel Slater’s new book, Ripe, which horrified me from the first few pages: pheasant with apples, blood sausage with apples, guinea fowl with sausage and apple… let’s just say that it took a few chapters before I was convinced Nigel was capable of writing recipes for the vegetarian in me. Don’t get me wrong, I think meat tastes great, but I don’t eat it so after 310 pages, I was glad to have found this focaccia recipe, and it’s a great one.

The best part about this classic harvest bread is that it can be subtly adjusted for a more savory flavor. Here, Nigel uses sugar to make a sweet caramelized grape crust, but I have also seen grape focaccia with rosemary and fennel toppings. I’m sure they are all amazing.

My first focaccia attempt earlier this summer was a recipe from a lovely book, which I have otherwise found many treasures… but a whole grain focaccia as a basal effort? I should know better than to start running before I learn to crawl. Working focaccia dough is like quicksand, the more you struggle, the more you sink. This was a hard lesson for me after some sticky, disastrous attempts until I tried the stretch and fold method for kneading bread. Don’t get me wrong, I love kneading bread and all of its glorious exercises but sometimes, it’s worth abandoning for the sake of sanity.

Schiacciata con l’uva (grape focaccia) inspired by Nigel Slater’s Recipe

Dough:

3 1/4 c. white bread flour

1 package of yeast ~2 ts.

1 ts. sea salt

1 tB sugar

1 1/2 c. warm water

Topping:

14 oz black seedless grapes

2 TB olive oil

2 TB raw sugar

confectioner’s sugar for dusting

+ Mix yeast and sugar in warm water (115°F) and allow to sit for five minutes until it begins to bubble a bit. In a large bowl, mix salt and flour together and stir in  yeast water once yeast is finished activating.

+ Once the dough has been mixed in very well, allow to sit for five minutes and dump the dough onto a floured surface and stretch dough out using this method: The stretch and fold technique from Peter Reinhart. 

+ Allow folded dough to sit for 45 minutes and repeat stretch and fold. Allow to sit another 45 minutes, but on the last dough stretch, fold in half of the grapes and allow dough to rise until doubled in size.

+ Preheat oven to 425°F. Top dough with olive oil, the remaining grapes, and place into the oven to bake for about 35 minutes. Once finished, dust the top of the focaccia with powdered sugar. Serve with butter.

There’s something heretical about the oralgasmic nature of  honey roasted sugar plums; its decadent, syrupy warmth prompting a sweet parting from the purity of raw fruits. It is certainly unnecessary but absolutely irresistible.

The Bible should be revised to say:

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did roast it with melted butter and honey, with a touch of vanilla, and gave none unto her husband with her; for it was too delicious. 

You see, this makes Eve a terrible sinner, evil and selfish, but it would make her an excellent gourmandize, capable of transforming the beauty of crisp summer sweetness into the opening hints of autumn’s comfort. Here, a creamy concoction of milky Irish cut oats provides a soothing canvas from which the honey flavored fruits float and sing that siren song of sugary sins. Did I mention that melted butter,  honey, and vanilla tastes like chocolate?

To Roast Sugar Plums:I’d be hesitant to replace other stone fruits for this recipe unless they are ripe and super firm.

for 4 fresh French sugar plums (also called fresh French prunes)

1 TB honey

1 TB unsalted sweet cream butter

dash of vanilla extract

+ Preheat oven to 400°F

+ Halve the plums and remove pits.

+ Place honey, butter, and vanilla in a microwave-safe bowl and heat until butter is melted. Mix well and toss plums in this mixture. Place plums cut side down and roast for 15 minutes. Save remainder of honey/butter sauce for topping roasted fruits.

+ Serve over creamy oatmeal or creamy barley or creamy wheat berries…

Everything turns violently ensanguined when you add beets to them, but in the midst of their bloody bliss is the promise of chilled summer borscht, red velvet cakes, or roseate risottos. And then there’s beet pancakes…

I fell for these crimson colored pancakes in Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain…  though the trouble in cooking pancakes has to do with self-control, a virtue I am constantly in want of. I eat them as soon as each one is done so I never get a lovely stack to share. The brilliant solution was to get someone else to cook them (aka, the boyfriend). I roasted some beets the previous night while baking focaccia and pureed them in advance so they could be quickly prepared for breakfast.

This recipe made so many pancakes we had to find a 4th person to finish the whole stack. This is probably because they are made with quinoa and whole wheat flours. Is it just me or do they triple in size upon consumption? The mascarpone adds a creamy honeyed texture that elevates this pancake to a extraordinary brunch. Also, fresh berries are a must. I’m already glum thinking about these dwindling days of summer.

Recipe Modified from Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain

Dry Mix:

1/2 c. quinoa flour

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1 c. all purpose flour

3 TB brown sugar

1 TB baking powder

3/4 ts. salt

Wet Mix

1/2 c. cooked and pureed beets (roast covered in a 400 °F for about 1 hour, puree in food processor until smooth)

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/3 c. plain yogurt

3 TB unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 egg

Toppings:

Mascarpone Cheese

Fresh berries (I heat mine in a small sauce pan with some sugar to help them release their juices)

Maple Syrup

+ Sift together dry ingredients.

+ In a separate bowl, whisk together wet  ingredients. Gently fold wet into dry mix with a rubber spatula.

+ Cook pancakes 1/4 c. at a time.

* This batter should be used the day it is made though Kim suggests thinning it out with 1 TB of milk at a time if storing overnight.

Hardly a day passes when I don’t go to Sightglass for a cup of “baby latte”. If there’s not been breakfast or brunch, the lattes are accompanied by these hearty blueberry muffins topped with bits sunflower seeds and raw sugar from Piccino Bakery. They are not delicate, but after eating a variety of the baked goods at Sightglass I have declared these my favorite.

Inspired to find a similar recipe, I tried baking a whole wheat version from King Arthur Flour, topping them with a nutty “streusel” of cinnamon dusted seeds and sugar. This particular recipe yields the most moist muffin I’ve ever made, and the brown sugar and whole wheat flour makes it especially hearty and maybe heart healthy. Twelve muffins lasted 1.5 days.

This recipe was so successful, I’m going to have to dig deeper into their whole grain book a little more…

Recipe modified from King Arthur Flour

2 1/4 c. whole wheat pastry flour

1 c. brown sugar

3/4 ts. salt

1 ts. baking powder

1/2 ts. baking soda

1/2 ts. ground cinnamon

1 c. fresh blueberries

1 ts. vanilla

1/3 c. vegetable oil

1 1/2 c. buttermilk

Streusel:  1/3 c. pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds mixed with 1/4 ts. cinnamon. Raw Sugar.

Preheat your oven to 400 °F

+ Sift together Flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon in a large bowl. Gently mix in fresh blueberries.

+ Whisk together vanilla, oil, and buttermilk.

+ Fold wet and dry mix together until just combined (do not overmix).

+ Spoon batter (I used an ice cream scoop) into 12 muffin cups until nearly full. Top each muffin with 1/8 ts. of raw sugar and some cinnamon seed streusel.

+ Bake for 20 minutes and remove from tins after 5 minutes of resting. They were so moist it is easy to squeeze them too hard… Let cool completely on a rack. Eat them warm!

The San Francisco’s library collection of cookbooks is quite impressive, but let’s not tell anyone. I think I made off with at least 3 more books than I had originally intended thus looking quite homeless on my walk home with an enormous bag. I get that desperate feeling on market street sometimes when I am carrying a heavy load for seven blocks… those shopping carts do look enticing after all.

Anyways, I’m not really that into Martha Stewart. She uses a little too much turquoise and teal in everything. Also, her recipes seem so matronly. Of course I am being completely condescending and dismissive. Martha and I ought to be the best of pals because what I found in her Pies & Tart book was a challenge to friendship in the form of my favorite Brassica -Cauliflower Hand Pies! Back in the days when I had a small command of the French language, I became enamored with the chou-fleur.  Chou was a French term of endearment and you can’t endear that much closer to my heart than a creamy chou-fleur soup du jour! Let’s just say I’m like the Cat Lady of cauliflower recipes.

I was determined to make a savory hand pie after reading and baking the Peach and Bourbon Hand Pies from Smitten Kitchen. Unfortunately, that impeccable flaky dough did not hold up the next day. It is really intended to be eaten immediately, because it was soaking up every ounce of humidity in the hair and was getting moist and limp with every aching minute. Further, this short crust recipe uses egg yolk and shredded cheese, a combination I’ve yet to try. I’m making a meal of them with a creamy and chunky mushroom barley soup (half of the mushrooms are pureed to give the broth some thickness). This combination was pretty hefty so a salad wouldn’t hurt.

Cauliflower Hand Pie Recipe

Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Pies & Tarts

Pastry

2 1/4 c. Flour

1/2 c. Grated Manchego Cheese

1/8 ts. Sugar

1 ts. Fine sea salt

3/4 c. Butter, cut into cubes and chilled in freezer

1 Egg Yolk

1/2 c. Ice Cold Water

Fillings

1 small cauliflower, sliced thinly

5 oz of sliced Machego cheese

Hazelnut Spread

2/3 c. Hazelnuts, roasted and skinned

1 garlic glove

1 ts. grated lemon zest

2 ts. chopped rosemary

1/4 c. olive oil

Egg Wash

1 egg yolk

1 TB cream

+ Make Pastry Dough: Sift flour, sugar and salt together. Add flour mixture, grated cheese and chilled butter in to a food processor. Pulse into a coarse meal with pea sized butter. Pulse into the flour and butter mixture 1 egg yolk, and then slowly add the ice water to the mix. Divide dough into two equal portions and flatten into a disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and place into fridge for a minimum of one hour.

+ While the dough is chilling, roast the cauliflower. First, brush them with a bit of olive oil on both sides and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Roast one side for 7 minutes and then flip and roast the other side for 5 minutes.

+ Make the Hazelnut spread in your food processor by chopping up the hazelnuts finely. Next, add lemon zest and rosemary. With the processor still running slowly add olive oil until the mixture resembles a wet peanut butter.

+ Remove chilled pastry disks from the fridge and roll the dough out to a thickness of 1/4″. With the first dough batch, cut eight 4″ circles and eight little flowers (decorative). Roll out the remaining dough disk and cut a 4 1/4″ or 4 1/2″ disk (these are the tops). I like to use a larger circle on the top as it allows me to put more fillings into the hand pies. Otherwise, sealing them can be difficult if you are prone to overstuffing.

+ Evenly place 8 4″bottom disks onto a parchment lined cookie sheet. Fill your bottom disks with 2 ts. of hazelnut spread, some cauliflower, and a slice or two of cheese (leaving at least 1/4″ space around the edges). You’ll have to be judicious with these amounts because after sealing one or two, you may find that it is possible to add or remove fillings in order to seal the pastries. Brush edges liberally with a mixture of 1 egg yolk and 1 TB of heavy cream wash. Press the top disks onto your bottom edges using a fork. I do four perpendicular corners and then press the remainder. Attach the decorative flowers using egg wash. Use the remainder of the egg wash to cover the hand pies. Chill in the fridge (I think these would freeze well at this point) for one hour.

+ Bake in a 375 °F oven for 30 minutes or until golden. Serve when the hand pies are at room temperature.

Chunky Mushroom Barley Soup (I puree half of the mushrooms to give the broth a lot of texture without having to use a thickener)

2 TB olive oil

1 small sweet onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

1 ts. finely chopped dried thyme

1 ts. finely chopped fresh rosemary

6 c. stock ( I used this sparingly as it tends to be salty, which is available at whole foods for about $5)

1 c. barley

6 c. mushrooms, sliced

4 TB butter

1 c. cream

+ In your soup pot, sautee the onions, garlic, thyme, and rosemary on medium low heat with the olive oil until the onions are translucent . Once the onions are translucent and tender, add 6 cups of broth and 1 cup of barley  to the pot. Bring the broth to a slow simmer and allow to cook until the barley is tender, approximately 40 minutes (longer if you want them more tender). Turn off your heat.

+Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large pan and cook the mushrooms on medium heat until they start to absorb all of their moisture. Mushrooms first release moisture when cooked but it will eventually evaporate as you continue to apply heat. This took me about 30 – 40 minutes.

+ Place half of the cooked mushrooms into the soup and puree the other in a food processor until a smooth consistency. Add this to the broth along with the cream to the soup. At this time, I added hot water until I got a consistency I liked. Salt to taste.

On most market days I am armed with a strictly defined list of ingredients and their quantities to prevent superfluous vegetables from rotting. However, my eyes get the best of me as I am frivolously drawn to purple colored vegetables. For some reason, this summer of vegetables has brought a bounty of purple colored edibles: purple bell peppers, purple tomatoes, purple string beans, purple cauliflower, et cetera. What’s a girl to do? Naturally, I started to collect these violet specimens, which accumulate themselves in my fridge as I frantically seek out the perfect recipe for these devilishly hued fruit. As I am writing these words, I’m also racking my pantry for various starches to fry up a handful of baby Japanese eggplants (imagine: finger sized purple beauties in a tempura batter).

As a cook, I am a creature of habit. Despite all of my good intentions to ‘explore’ new cooking methods, I will make a quiche on most weeks. Perhaps I should devote those hours to exploring something new and different?  This past week was no exception. I discarded all of those good intentions for a sack of these lovely Chocolate cherry tomatoes. For good measure, I also tossed in some of those cute Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes. Purple and yellow makes such a lovely contrast, I reasoned as I took my defiant quiche habit to the kitchen and made a rich ricotta tart dotted with these roasted lycopersicum miniatures. As soon as the quiche came out of the oven , I ate a slice immediately. The Francophile in me purred a bit.

This particular quiche recipe (I usually just wing it) comes from my favorite cookbook, Cafe Paradiso Seasons. Denis Cotter is a kitchen genius whose complex recipes taste elegantly simple – the ingredients just belong. I’m constantly underestimating the length of time it takes to throw together a Cafe Paradiso dish, but the efforts are worth every bite. I pair weekend quiches with weekday soups and salads to make a meal. Additionally, a double batch of quiche can fit in a conventional oven if you are feeling super constructive.

Recipe adapted from Dennis Cotter’s Cafe Paradiso Seasons with some pastry advice from Tartine. This is a pretty intensive recipe with multiple steps. I’d recommend setting aside an afternoon.

Flaky Tart Dough (Pate Brisee): This basic flaky dough is based on Tartine’s 3:2:1 ratio of Flour: Butter: Water (by weight) that converts easily into larger double or triple recipes for multiple tarts. Be sure to add water about 1/4 c. at a time to account for various humidity levels. Below is enough for 1 tart.

1  1/4c. White Pastry Flour  (5.5 oz.)

6 TB Butter (3 oz)

3 TB Water (1.5 oz)

1 ts Salt

Custard:

6 strands of Saffron soaked in 1TB of hot water

1 c. Ricotta

4 Eggs

1/3 c. heavy cream

2/3 c. Grated Parmesan

Fillings:

20 Chocolate cherry tomatoes & Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes

10 Kalamata Olives

Tomato Pesto: 4 sundried Tomatoes reconstituted in hot water, 1 Garlic, 1/4 c. Olive Oil

+ Start the pastry dough by dissolving salt in water and placing it in a freezer to chill. Cut the butter into 1 inch cubes and place in the freezer to chill on a plate, covered with plastic wrap (I’m paranoid about unwanted freezer smells). Measure out the flour into a metal bowl and place it into the freezer along with the butter and water until the butter is extremely cold. I usually have some tea and cookies at this time. To mix the dough, place sifted cold flour into a food processor with the cold chunks of butter. Pulse a few times, making sure to keep mixture chunky with pea sized butter bits. Slowly add water to this mixture, pulsing while drizzling cold water into the processor (mix as little as possible to prevent your gluten from overworking and shrinking during baking). Remove onto a floured surface and shape into a 1″ thick disk. You might have to knead the dough a bit to get it to solidify, but keep this to a minimum. Wrap the dough in a sheet of plastic and chill for at least two hours.

+ Roll out the pastry dough to a circumference 1 1/2 in. larger than the tart shell. Do not roll the dough out too thin or the shell will shrink in the baking process. You want to use the most dough as possible and reduce overworking the dough which causes the gluten to shrink. Roll your dough disk onto the rolling pin and unroll it onto the tart shell. Gently press the bottom and sides into the shell mold and remove excess dough with your pin by rolling it over the metal edge. Using a fork, put some holes into the dough to prevent the pastry from bubbling during baking. Cover the shell with plastic and chill for 1 hour.  Or, freeze for up to 2 weeks. This step is especially important for flakiness.

+ Preheat the oven to 375°F

+ Prepare the fillings. Make your pesto by draining the tomatoes of their water and pureeing them in a food processor with the garlic while slowly adding olive oil. Set aside. Slice the olives and tomatoes. Place the tomatoes cut side up in an ovenproof dish and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil. Sprinkle with a little salt.

+ Bake the dough by lining the shell with parchment paper and then topping the shell with an even distribution of pie weights such as beans or rice. After 20 minutes, remove the pie weights and parchment and bake the shell for about 3 minutes more. Place the shell on a cooling rack.

+ Roast the tomatoes for about 30 minutes – you want them to remain juicy. Reduce the oven temperature to 350°F.  Meanwhile, make the custard. Blend saffron with soaking water, ricotta, eggs, cream, and parmesan  to a smooth consistency. Spread an even layer of tomato pesto onto the cooled pastry shell placed onto a flat cookie sheet (this makes the quiche easier to handle and prevents spillage in the oven). Once the tomatoes are done roasting, pour the custard into the tart being careful to not completely fill the shell ( I leave about a 1/4″ from the top). Place roasted tomatoes cut side up into the custard in an even pattern. Distribute olives in between the roasted tomatoes. If there is space left in your tart, spoon in any remaining custard (if there is any) using a tablespoon.

+ Bake your quiche for 30-40 minutes until the custard is set. Let stand for 10 minutes before cutting and serving.