Where ya been Dishes? Woo boy. Where haven’t I been?
There’s been a lot going on this summer. Some highlights: four weddings in five weeks, a small fire that required weeks of clean-up, making upwards of ninety jars of jam, general laziness (of course), and a family visit/road trip. Hopefully life will calm down a bit now. The fire weren’t really no thang – I got very, very lucky in that I did not destroy my entire house, all my belongings, my dog, or any of the same for the neighbors. The downside is weeks of smoke-smell and a fortnight-long cleaning jag that unearthed (among other things), a hornet’s nest, a small plastic turtle that used to live on my stove, and evidence that Mr. Dishes and I are uniquely unsuited for the task of being adults and not living like garbage people/trolls under bridges/those beetles that roll balls of shit into (Google:) “breeding chambers”. (Shudder.)
Great food blog, Dishes. I’m sure that all your fans who have missed you so much over the last couple months were really wondering about your thoughts on dung beetles.
Dung Beetles! That’s it! I was calling them Shit Beetles.
Enough of the vulgarity. At this point the only person reading this nonsense is your mom, and she’s not a fan of your potty mouth. Get back to work. Since you started writing this, you’ve gotten distracted with the following things: washing two sets of curtains, going through pockets looking for change, going down to get a drink, making a grocery list, getting obsessed with removing a light fixture to change the bulb even though the bolt is rusty and won’t turn, locating WD-40, discussing Mr. Dishes’s career goals, Weeds Season 8, and facebooking a picture of a hornet’s nest.
Okay. Excuses over. I’ll just write some stuff. After all the crap I’ve been through (put myself through) I needed a win. I wanted something pretty. And Trader Joe’s had bags of different colored carrots I’ve been searching for forever. Once upon a time I saw another blog (whose name escapes me – apologies to the writer) where the most beautiful tart was made of thin ribbons of vegetables rolled into a giant spiral with strips of ham and filled with custard to be baked like a quiche. Or a tart. Whatever. I’ve never made anything quite so lovely, so instead of my usual slab of meat or bucket of sawce (as a food-friend calls it), I thought I’d give it a try.
(Yes, I cheated with a frozen crust. I’m sorry, but this is too much work already to add homemade pastry. I can do crust – puh-leeze. It’s a snap, but I just didn’t feel like it. Here we have:
Purple, yellow, and orange carrots, zucchini, yellow squash, and Black Forest ham. Amounts may vary. My much-loved, little-used mandolin slicer makes short work of the zucchini and squash, and I use a manual peeler on the carrots to make thin ribbons. Purple carrots look like bacon when all is said and done. Or more like fake-on, or vegan bacon, or those baconish dog treats. The ham gets cut into strips also.
I blanch the vegetables in salty water for a few minutes to soften them, then lay them out in pinteresting piles for a photo-op.
This is where it gets tricky: the rolling. Do you think it’s easy rolling wet, limp ribbons of carrots into a neat rosette, then adding greasy ham? It is not, let me tell you. It takes a few tries, and I get the hang of it, with the aid of some toothpicks.
It gets bigger. And bigger.
Until it’s done!
I left the squash out entirely, as the seeds made the slices to ragged too work with. I note with some despair that I have more than enough ingredients leftover for a second tart, so I roll again.
Quiche custard is super-easy (thanks to Michael Ruhlman’s excellent book Ratio). One part egg to two parts liquid – in this case half-and-half. I add a quarter cup of grated parmesan (not the real stuff), a tablespoon of Dijon mustard, and a little salt and pepper. In this case, two eggs and one cup of half-and-half makes exactly enough custard to fill in both spirals.
Bake at 325 for 50-55 minutes and voila!
It’s just gorgeous. I’m thrilled. When you cut a slice (very, very carefully), you get to see all the beautiful layers.
Full disclosure, it mostly tastes like ham’n’carrot. If you like ham’n’carrot quiche, then do I have a recipe for you! But still – I’m happy. I made something pretty. Now back to that light fixture…
illdothedisheslater 