Leisure

Last Friday was my last day of work. Since then I have done absolutely nothing, catching up on sleep, biking to and from places and cycling for a bit of exercise. This break has been much needed because I just felt so drab. I suppose I could have stayed until the end of this week for the cash, but then again, I really wanted some time for myself. Aside from being an official bum, I have picked up baking again. There are numerous recipes I keep meaning to try out, and out of the blue I realized that I had never made a quiche. I know, quiches aren't very hard to make, and by all means, delicious. So I ventured to our bookshelf at our apartment and found only one quiche recipe in the Cooking Light cookbook. Actually, it was a "tart" recipe, but whatever.

Tomato Basil Tart
1 (11 ounce) can refrigerated soft bread stick dough
Cooking spray
3 large plum tomatoes
3/4 tsp salt
1 cup loosely packed basil leaves
3/4 cup (3-ounces) shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 large egg whites
2 teaspoon olive oil

Preheat oven to 425. Since I didn't, or was too lazy, find bread stick dough I used pied crust. Cover the pie crust with heavy duty foil. If you have regular foil, cover the pie crust and put some dried beans on top so that it keeps the foil down. Bake at 425 for 15 minutes. Remove foil. Return to oven and bake an additional 5 minutes at 350 degrees.

Cut the tomatoes into 1/4" slices. I didn't find plum tomatoes so again, I substituted. Salt tomato slices on one side. Put several paper towels down on a plate, and place tomato slices salt side down. Cover with additional paper towel(s). Let stand for 10 minutes. Press down on towel to absorb any additional moisture.

Place basil, cheeses, pepper and egg whites in a food processor (or a good blender). Process until smooth. Spread cheese mixture over crust, or in my case, pour into pie crust. Arrange tomato slices over the cheese mixture. Brush tomatoes with olive oil.

At the end, before I put the tart into the oven I brushed over the tomatoes with olive oil and pesto sauce, and sprinkled a bit more salt. Baked for 40 minutes at 350 degrees.

**If you can find the refrigerated dough:
Unroll dough, separating into strips.
Working on a flat surface, coil 1 strip of dough around itself in a spiral pattern.
Add second strip of dough to end end of first strip, pinching ends to seal, continue coiling remaining dough. Let rest for ten minutes.

Roll dough into a 12" circle; fit into bottom and up sides of a 9" round removable-bottom tart pan coated with cooking spray. Proceed to follow directions regarding tin foil.