Zucchini Lasagna Tart

Ok, so this entire week has gone by with no post. Sorry. I have been uber busy and did not meet my quota for blogging. But man, oh man, is this the recipe to wait for! It was soooo good, even if my crust skills are not up to par.

We got a boatload of zucchini's, summer squash, and another one I am not sure the name of. I have made two recipes now with them, and pretty much only used up 2 out of the 5, maybe 2.5. More to come, and that is not even mentioning the other veggies we got this week. We did use some of the greens though, and hopefully I will get around to making a quiche to freeze here soon.

De.lic.ious. That is about all I can say, more words would degrade it. I got the recipe from 101 cookbooks. It was for lasagna tart, from scratch, crust and everything, well, ok, not the sauce. I must confess, I did buy crust just in case, but decided last minute to shoot for the whole shebang. And I am glad I did! The crust was magnificent! I did not do very well rolling them out evenly, and my white whole wheat flour was surely not the same as whole wheat pastry flour, but still a tasty concotion.

I also did not have a large tart pan, but several small ones, so I made 6 individual serving tarts by just making smaller circles in the dough.

Lasagna Tarts

2 medium zucchini, sliced into very very thin coins

scant 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Tart Crust

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or spelt flour)

1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

zest of one lemon

1/4 cup olive oilscant

1/2 cup cold water

1 c spaghetti sauce or marinara sauce 1 1/2 cups ricotta cheese

Preheat your oven to 375F degrees, and place a rack in the middle. Oil a 10-inch tart pan and set aside.

Start by tossing the sliced zucchini with the salt in a medium bowl. Transfer the zucchini to a colander and let it drain while you make the tart shell.

To make the tart shell combine the flour, salt, and lemon zest in a large mixing bowl. Drizzle the olive oil over the flour and stir that in as well. Drizzle the cold water over the flour and mix with a fork just until it is absorbed. Knead one or twice - just until the dough comes together into a ball. On a lightly floured surface use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a circle roughly 13-inches across. Ease the pastry into your tart pan and press it into the corners and up the sides without stretching the dough. Trim away any excess dough, and place the pan in the refrigerator for at least thirty minutes. When the dough is done resting, prick the crust with a fork a few times. Now line the pastry with parchment paper and fill the tart with pie weights. Bake for 15 minutes. Carefully remove the paper and pie weights, then toast the tart crust in the oven for another five minutes or so before transferring it to a rack to cool. Leave the oven on, but dial it down to 350F. When you are ready to assemble the tart, use a spatula to spread half of the ricotta cheese across the base of the tart shell. Now spoon about half of the sauce over the ricotta and arrange half of the zucchini in a single layer on top of the sauce (see image). If your zucchini is still quite wet, press it into some paper towels. I use my fingers for this next part. After spooning the remaining ricotta over the zucchini, push it around a bit with your fingers so that it forms a layer. Arrange another layer of zucchini and finish with the remaining sauce. You want the filling to nearly, but not quite fill the pan.

Place the tart on a rimmed baking sheet - in case you end up with an overflow - and bake for roughly 45 minutes or until the tarts are cooked through. Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before serving (for the small tart pans I cooked them for 25 minutes). I dusted the top of this with a bit of Parmesan, awesome!

If you prefer homemade sauce, go to her website, I just did not have all the ingredients, yet. Wait till tomatoes are up!

If you make any recipe on this blog, and like italian, make this one. And the curry. My favorites so far.