TWD BWJ Alsatian Onion Tart

I’m still hoping to get around to making my own puff pastry later this month, but this week I chose the easy version.   Paul, Charlotte, and I left our house Friday morning to spend a long weekend in West Virginia.  I was only expecting about a 3 hour drive, so I thought I’d have plenty of time to make this tart once we got there.  Well, as I continue to learn every day, things with a baby (toddler?) take a lot longer than they used to.  By the time we got out of the house, ran two errands, and took the “scenic route” to our destination (I never should have let Paul talk me in to the last one!) it was after five o’clock.  So, I had to make this as quickly as I could.

 I quickly scanned the recipe and determined that the hold-up would be the onions, so I got those started first.  Afterwards, I took out the puff pastry.  Luckily—both because I had no time and because the house we were staying in had no flour—the one I bought from Trader Joe’s was already quite thin, so I just unrolled it onto a sheet pan, docked it, and threw it in the refrigerator.  (I gave Charlotte a fork and tried to get her to help me dock the pastry, but she just kept trying to pick up the pastry with her fork.  I guess she was hungry!)   Next I took out the bacon.  Unfortunately it had gone bad.  (I didn’t know bacon went bad.)  It was late and we were in the middle of nowhere, so getting a replacement was out of the question.  I surveyed the options and decided to go with some chicken apple breakfast sausage as a replacement.  I browned it, cut it into small pieces, assembled, and baked the tart.  All told, it still took a little over an hour start-to-finish.  Not too bad, but by no means a quick dinner.

While the tart was baking, I roasted Jerusalem artichokes (a FFWD make-up recipe that I’m hoping to write up soon) and boiled some lima beans (I picked some up at our CSA on a whim).  I really enjoyed the entire dinner.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—almost anything would taste good on puff pastry.  I’m not sure that boiling the onions would be my first choice (I think it’s hard to beat onions that are slow-cooked in butter) but I did like the addition of heavy cream.  Bacon would have been better than the breakfast sausage I used, but I thought the sausage was a surprisingly good substitute.  Paul loved the tart, but wouldn’t eat the Jerusalem artichokes (stomach issues) and seemed to avoid the lima beans as well.  Charlotte only ate the lima beans.  She always keeps us guessing!  I doubt I’ll make the tart again—there are just too many good recipes to try—but we enjoyed it and I’m glad we tried it.