The Cracked Wooden Spoon: Booking and cooking.

I absolutely love this time of year. Every store has stacks of clean notebooks and packs of 50 pencils. School is right around the corner. Life without the academic calendar is very foreign to me. I haven't lived without this special anticipation and excitement during the last weeks of August since, well...I was three. In the pre-pre-school days. Clearly I am in the right field. That is the student-turned-teacher-turned-student field. Classes start Monday, and there is already lots of reading to do and notes to go over. I've assembled binders and sharpened pencils. I am ready. Thus, these days, I am doing a lot of booking and cooking. And, looks like this will be plan for awhile.

purple and white eggplant slices

tomato menagerie

Menu:
Mixed Eggplant and Tomato Tart (#169) with Chickpea Crust (#170)
Summer Sangria (#171)

A colleague of mine came bearing gifts one morning of big beautiful eggplants and a pile of grape tomatoes from her garden. Isn't that the sweetest? Immediately I got to thinking how I could use these in the kitchen. Knowing Schaeffer, Amalie & Beth were coming over for some pre-Friday night dancing supper, I thought a tart was in order. I've been trying to lighten things up in my kitchen these days. Now, don't misinterpret me, that's not to day I'm bidding farewell to butter completely. Just trying to keep things on the somewhat healthier side here and there.
This causes problems when making a tart crust. Usually I would mix flour and butter and a dash of salt in the food processor until it tasted like the heavenly mixture that it is.

Reading the Cake Batter & Bowl blog, I saw Kerstin's idea for using a can of chickpeas in tart dough in lieu of butter. Initially this seemed incredibly sacrilegious to me. But, I gave in and tried it. (Minus the protein powder. That just is sacrilegious.) I pulled some oregano and thyme from my garden, added flour, the can of chickpeas and some olive oil. It pulsed into a dough well, with some added flour.

The herbs were a great addition to the crust, although I'm not sold on the chickpea substitution. However, in all fairness, I knew that from the outset. I layered the crust with eggplant that had been roasted at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, sliced tomatoes and about a cup of shredded mozzarella and parmesan. Bake the tart at 375 degrees until the contents bubbles a bit.

sangria mixture

cooked sangria mixture

I don't do a lot of fancy things with drinks. I open beer can tabs on Bud Light or PBR. I uncork wine bottles. Sometimes I add St. Germaine liquor and club soda and a lime. But that is it. When I saw Rachel's sangria on her blog Heart of Light, I wanted to try it right then. There is something really special about having to 'cook' ingredients for a drink. Does that make sense? Maybe not. But it was delicious.