A Bottomless French Tart (don't get too excited)

This is obviously not how I wanted to spend my Friday. I had a vision: I would make a beautiful French tart that would be fairly simple to make and taste divine. Sadly, my vision was slightly askew. The depressing mistake in the photo above was because I (in my infinite wisdom) thought that pie weights were rather silly. I thought, why not just use the bottom of another tart pan to keep it from rising? Brilliant! So, I put it in the oven, waited the 15 minutes, took it out when it was golden brown and beautiful... and then... oh dear. It was dreadful. The bottom was raw! Sad day. And so, I did it the right way.



There they are... little tartlets. With the much needed pie weights. And here is what they ended up looking like. I was quite pleased with the end result (they were delicious, I might add), but the getting there was a bit rough.

There's Something About Pesto

It makes me happy. Pesto is, by far, my favorite pasta sauce. I'm not sure if it's the large amount of basil or the large amount of cheese (or perhaps the combination of both?) that gets me, but for a great pesto I get weak in the knees.

And this, my friends, is a great pesto:

Great Pesto

Yield: 32 oz.

8 oz. basil leaves
10 oz. pine nuts
1 oz. garlic, mashed to a paste
½ oz. salt
8-16 oz. olive oil
8 oz. grated Parmesan

Toast the pine nuts before you start getting into "Pesto Mode." They will be much better that way.


Rinse the basil leaves well, dry, and coarsely chop. Transfer a handful into a food processor.

Pulse for a few seconds (until it makes room for another handful). Do this until all of the basil fits into the food processor.

Add pine nuts, garlic, and salt and pulse for a few seconds. Add oil gradually until it forms a thick paste.

Taste and adjust seasoning with salt. Stir in the parmesan.*

*If you plan on heating the pesto at all (microwaving leftovers, etc.), I recommend that you not stir in the cheese. Just add it in later as needed. If you heat pesto, the cheese will melt and become rubbery…not a good thing to have.

VOILA! Now you have a delicious pesto (32 oz. of it to boot!) to eat with pasta, crackers, or just in a spoon.

I hope you enjoy it! I've found that it's pretty darn fool-proof.

Mari