Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

This tart makes me feel like a European chef. I can imagine myself taking a day off from my restaurant and staying home to make something like this. We would lounge outside on the patio enjoying a light dinner of wine, tarts, and cheese. Ah, the life… Even if you aren’t actually in your dream villa or anywhere close to it, this tart will transport you. Let it take you to your happy place.

The goat cheese and the slightly charred tomatoes marry so well. I’m still shocked that I willingly eat tomatoes. Why didn’t anyone tell me how amazing summer tomatoes can be? I’m sad to think that their moment is ending. Soon we’ll be moving into the fall vegetables.

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Creamy Hummus

I love hummus. It is such a delicious snack, and surprisingly not too bad for you. I think Sabra is one of my favorite kinds. They do such a great job at making it so smooth and creamy. Also, they make a wicked roasted red pepper flavored hummus. In the past when I have tried to make hummus, the texture could never compare to the store-bought kind. Recently, I found a short blog post about a technique on how to make smoother hummus at home. One other important element to good homemade hummus is freshly cooked beans and not the canned kind. It takes quite a bit longer, but I think it is worth it.

Mushroom & Cilantro Quesadillas

I really love mushrooms. I usually have at least one small container of mushrooms in the fridge at all times. After moving out of our cute little apartment in San Luis Obispo Sam and I have been bouncing around. We spent a few weeks up in the bay area and now we are temporarily settled at my mom’s place in San Diego. One of nice things about being in a bigger city than San Luis Obispo is the supermarkets. Instead of just having Safeway and Albertson’s you can find all different kinds of ethnic markets. One of favorite ones in San Diego is the Vietnamese market that happens to be just up the street from where my mom lives. I got so excited when I was there that I bought 4 different kinds of mushrooms! I have yet to use several of them, but I have great plans for all of them.

Sushi rolls and Sauces

What feels like ages ago, we had a sushi party, and then a few weeks later we had another. Sam and rolled about 8 rolls of sushi and then shared them with some great company. It was a total mess. There was rice everywhere. They mean it when they call it sticky rice. But it was so fun. And then we had a lovely stay with Sam’s family and had a sushi party there as well. That one was a lot bigger (Over 200 pieces?) and a lot more delicious. Its all about the fresh fish, I’ll remember that next time.

If you like the tempura-ed rolls with baked mushrooms and scallops on top, these are probably not the type of sushi for you. They were quite plain and simple, but ultimately good and quite the healthy meal. I think the sauces that we made to go with them really made them worthwhile. One of the sauces was a spicy mayo made with delicious sriracha and the other was a sweet soy sauce glaze.

Bruschetta

Did you know that this is supposed to be pronounced ‘brusketta’? I had no idea. I’ve been saying it the wrong way for a long time. I guess three months of Italian classes didn’t pay off.

When I was looking up bruschetta recipes after my craving, I learned that it was originally made with just bread, garlic, salt and pepper. Now we have tons of variations.  This recipe that I will be posting for you is a combination of several different recipes I came across. I always like to pick and choose bits from different recipes to make my own semi original recipe. Plus, I have some sort of issue where I simply can’t follow any recipe to the letter. I’m always changing something around. Not that it’s always for the best but some tweaking can be good.