We are a collection of Minneapolis folks cooking, preserving, and harvesting local, seasonal foods. This blog-share is meant to inspire greater culinary genius, as well as continued local food invention. What are YOU concocting in that kitchen of yours?

4.26.2011

Wild rice, zucchini, leek and chevre tart

I recently came across a new food blog via The Heavy Table. It's called All About Food, and I was hooked after seeing many wild rice recipes and reading about her Hungarian and German/Czech ancestry. And she talks about the Mississippi River, and I just appreciate midwestern pride, so there we go.

Anyway - I tried her wild rice pie crust this week, and OMG. It's a whole new kind of savory tart crust: chewy, super flavorful, and not so rich as pastry. I also find an appeal to having a whole-food sort of crust - which could be entirely locally sourced except for the lemon. I can't wait to try this crust with a variety of fillings.

The recipe is definitely on the rich side - she recommends that you stick with the heavy cream for the filling, and I would argue that half and half would be a bit lighter and nice too. I really like the zucchini/leek combo, and chevre always reminds me of the year I worked at a small farm making goat cheese in Iowa. The little cheese kitchen was next to the milking room in the barn and always smelled like tart goat milk; there were flies stuck to fly paper all over the ceiling and the farm kittens would wait by the door to drink up the whey. I often went to help pick and package veggies for the CSA shares while the milk pasteurized. Fresh goat cheese with just picked spinach = total bliss as far as I am concerned!

This tart is tasty - though beware of that 10" pie pan. Who has a 10? pie pan?? I happened to have a 10" cast iron, but kind of rare size. I ate the tart with my last jar of pickled beets on some salad greens from WI. And I was able to plant my own lettuce, arugula, beets, and radish before the big rains - so soon I'll be eating out of my own garden. Yay!

2 comments:

  1. I love this post--yay, midwestern (and Iowan!) pride. Was it ZJ Farm?

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  2. yes- totally ZJ farm. I love that place.

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