Recipe Sundays

My oh my, did we ever have a lovely, lazy weekend around the Wilson house. I loved it! The only item on the agenda going into the weekend was John's Saturday morning baseball game. Sadly, we learned late Friday evening that the game would be rained out. Not because we were experiencing rain on Saturday, but because the Dallas area had suffered severe rain in the days before then and the people who own the fields had declared them too muddy for play. So all of a sudden our family had NOTHING on the calendar for the weekend. I cannot remember the last time that has happened! After last weekend's dance recital and the many weekends prior of multiple sports plus ballet plus church choir plus birthday parties, etc., this was a welcome break.

The main thing that kept me moving happily in the 85 degree heat during my Saturday morning run was the plan I had formulating in my head about using all this newfound time to visit the Dallas Farmer's Market. We have not yet been to the farmer's market this year, and I really do like to get fresh local fruits and veggies when I can. After my run I stayed sweaty and convinced Amelia to come to the market with me while John and Scott went to the batting cage for practice.

The Dallas farmer's market is located adjacent to downtown, which is only about a 10 minute drive from our house. Amelia and I purchased fresh local tomatoes - beefsteak and grape varieties -, blueberries, and local Texas peaches. We also purchased fresh pork and beef from a farmer who provides meat only from his own grass-fed animals who are not treated with hormones and other harmful products. Oh, and we also purchased some fresh fudge (Amelia's choice, which was delicious!). More on what we made with some of these products below.

Saturday afternoon was spent at our neighborhood pool. Our Saturday afternoon visit was our second official trip to the pool this year, the first being Friday night during dinner time, and the kids were begging to come back for a second visit. After spending the month of May taking daily swim lessons at SMU both kids are quite confident in the water, finally.

Amelia is a pro now. She will gladly go off the high and low diving boards and is not timid about swimming in the deep end. She makes stroke motions without being prompted and loves diving deep. John still favors the shallow end of the pool, though he has gone off the low diving board into the deep end a few times and really seems to enjoy it. He also makes stroke motions with his arms on his own and swims much more independently than last year, which is a huge improvement.

Amelia and John entertained themselves for over an hour playing a game where Amelia held John on her back and she took him for "horsey rides". This was really cute to watch! And I loved the fact that I could relax on the lounge chair in the sun and watch them and read my novel at the same time.

Now on to what we did with all of those tomatoes. Happily I present the Tomato-Rosemary Tart from Southern Loving magazine, July 2009. Oh, was this ever delicious!

Tomato-Rosemary Tart

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 (17.3-oz.) package frozen puff pastry sheets, thawed
1/4 cup (2 oz.) shredded mozzarella cheese
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary (I used dried, plus some Italian seasoning and garlic powder)
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley (optional, I did not use this)

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Cut tomatoes into 1/4-inch slices, and place on a paper towel-lined wire rack. Sprinkle tomatoes with salt. Let stand 20 minutes. Pat dry with paper towels.

2. Unfold 1 puff pastry sheet on a lightly floured baking sheet. Arrange tomato slices in a single layer on pastry. Stir together cheese and next 3 ingredients in a small bowl. Sprinkle cheese mixture over tomatoes.

3. Bake for 22 to 25 minutes or until pastry is puffed and golden brown. Sprinkle with shaved parmesan cheese, if desired (I did this).

We served this with grilled pork chops (from the farmer's market vendor) and a mixed green salad garnished with strawberries, feta, almonds, onion, and balsamic dressing.

The star of the tart was the lemon zest. The lemon flavor totally made the dish taste outstandingly fresh and delicious. Yummy! I think you could add shredded spinach or basil, or other veggies to this dish to suit a different palate.

Oh, and for the title of this post, "Recipe Sundays"? I am going to challenge myself this summer to try and cook at least one recipe per week - likely on Sundays - from my existing stash of "to try" recipes from cookbooks and printouts and magazine clippings. I have many enormous stacks of "to try" recipes and I really need to work my way through them before I print out more from the internet or bookmark more from magazines. As much as I love reading cooking blogs, cooking magazines, and the cookbooks I already own to gather new ideas, I really want (NEED) to make peace with what I have already collected before I add to the existing stash.

So far, tonight's attempt was a completely delicious winner that I will make again!