Leftover Bread

I'm always looking for uses for it. Some of the things I do frequently: bread crumbs, sweet bread pudding and it's savory cousin called "strata", crostini and bruschetta, bread salad, croutons, quick "pizza" by topping it with chopped tomatoes and mozzarella and then throwing it under the broiler, thickening soups...this list could go on. You name it, I've probably done it.

About 2 weeks ago I came up with my best leftover bread invention yet. It was on pizza night (Friday night in our house) and I wanted to put a quick dessert together. My train of thought went like this: I already have the oven on, I might as well throw something else in. Sounds silly, but we have an electric oven and since electricity isn't cheap it's quite practical to bake two (or more) things for the price of one every time I turn it on. I seemed to have an unusual amount of day old bread laying around and after surveying what else I had on hand I put this little tart together. I even had the presence of mind to write down the recipe...and it's definitely a keeper.

Day Old Tart

This is seriously the first thing that came to mind for a name. I just typed it out and stared at it on the computer screen and thought: maybe I should give it another name, this sounds both unappetizing and a little risqué. But, now I'm thinking that it sounds intriguing and risqué and that's precisely why I should leave that as the name.

2 eggs

2 tbsp milk

1/4 cup sugar

1 cup leftover bread, cut in small cubes

1 tsp cinnamon, plus some for garnish

1/2 tsp unsweetened cocoa

pinch salt

1 tbsp jam (I used pumpkin pinenut jam because it was open and in my fridge, but you could use whatever you have on hand)

1 tsp honey

1/2 cup chopped almonds

2 tbsp unsalted butter

1 pear peeled, cored and sliced thin

Preheat oven to 350 F. Whisk together the eggs, milk and sugar. Add in the bread, cinnamon, cocoa, salt, jam and honey and almonds and mix making sure to coat all of the bread. It should be pretty moist, if not just add a little more milk. I used bread that was 2 days old, so it was still a little springy to the touch. After mixing it I covered it and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour. If using bread that's more on the dry side you should let it sit in the mixture for a few hours to soften it. I use this trick for bread pudding also - it will always come out more moist if you do it this way. Put a small skillet (I used a 6" crepe pan) over low heat and melt the butter. Once the butter is melted add in the bread mix and using a rubber spatula pull the mix away from the edges of the pan (like you would for an omelette). Once the edges have firmed up turn off the heat. Fan the sliced pear around the top. I chopped up all the leftover misshapen pieces of pear and put them in the center to hide the the little hole that forms. Bake for approximately 20 minutes and then garnish the top with a dusting of cinnamon.

I used a crepe pan because I don't have a small tart pan here; my Sicilian kitchen is quite scarce when it comes to supplies. I started it on the cook top because when I poured it in the crepe pan it wasn't perfectly round (because the sides of the crepe pan are fluted) and by cooking it over a low flame first I was able to maneuver the sides into a perfect circle. If I had the proper tart pan I could've just skipped that all together and put it right into the oven. I'm sure this wouldn't have effected the outcome at all.

I suppose that I am always just making do with what I have here. C'est la vie. The end result was fantastic though and I will certainly be making this one again.

A vegetable tart fit for a carnivore

I know it looks kind of like a pizza from this angle, but it's not.

I was sitting in the kitchen the other day listening to my usual round of NPR podcasts and out of nowhere something popped into my head: pie. Before I knew it I was digging my hands into butter and flour and making some pâte brisée. I wasn't sure at that point what it was going to turn into, but I figured that by the time I pulled the rested dough out of the fridge I would have an idea. I remembered seeing a recipe in Gourmet last winter about a mushroom and farro pie. Conveniently, I had farro and some dried porcini mushrooms on hand. I love it when dinner happens like this - you know, when you try to make something out of the ingredients you have in the kitchen. It's like putting together a tasty puzzle. Projects are fun.

I cooked the farro, soaked and drained the porcini then opened up the fridge to see what else I could throw in. This is what I scrounged up: roasted red peppers, onions and garlic from dinner the night before, a little red sauce I made for a pizza 2 days prior, a little passata (tomato puree) that needed to be used up and some chopped celery leaves. I combined all of this with the farro and mushrooms and then added a little balsamic vinegar, some of the porcini liquid, salt, pepper, a touch of cocoa and cinnamon, and an egg. After resting the dough for a few hours I pressed it into a pan and par baked it. The the filling went in and I showered the top of it with some parmiggiano.

I popped the tart in the oven, put on a Fresh Air podcast, poured a

glass of red wine, grabbed a People magazine (it's my thing, let it go) and retired to the couch. At any point during all of this did I look for the Gourmet recipe? Umm, no. Here's where I should explain something about myself.

I rarely follow recipes, meaning actually measuring ingredients out and following rules. I tend to follow recipes more when I'm baking, but I have to admit that even then I sometimes make little changes. My usual thing is to just take ideas from a recipe and go with it. Also, I have an obsession with trying to use up what's in my fridge and cupboard - I'm an obsessive recycler. So I'm all for substituting ingredients and spices whenever I need to. My aversion to rules is working to my advantage right now while living in Italy. I'm convinced that Italians think some rules are specifically made to be broken. Stopping at red lights, waiting in lines, customer service...Italians hate all of these things. Thanks to my ancestors I have that same rebellious streak in me. I'm sure it can be traced back through my bloodline. But that's neither here nor there.

I served the tart with a simple fennel and celery salad: fennel and celery sliced very thin with olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice and zest and some more chopped celery leaves (a Bittman inspired recipe you can find here). The tart was so filling and honestly tasted meaty, and that's not a word I throw around lightly. I NEVER say things like that about vegetarian dishes, but this was something special.

Here's a link to the Gourmet recipe Mushroom and Farro Pie. It looks delish.