A tart you can count on

When Jessy and I went to Joe Patti's we stopped by Kara's fruit stand in the parking lot. James and I had paid her a visit this summer on the way back from Nola and stocked up on tomatoes and this time of year she had some uber choice citrus fruits and believe it or not, strawberries from Plant City, FL.

I bought three pints of strawberries, so beside myself with glee for the chance to eat-strawberries!-in wintertime, deprived as I am for local berries in my native Massachusetts. I also brought back a quarter bushel of outrageously juicy tangerines and a quarter bushel of sweet as can be pink grapefruit.

The citrus didn't last long; we made copious amounts of fresh tangergine margaritas and drank up fresh grapefruit juice with breakfast, leaving me the strawberries.

Well, after taking inventory of the pantry, Jessy and I settled on making a flourless almond strawberry tart. We havn't actually eaten yet, so I don't know how good it is, but judging from the ingredients, how could it not be? Here goes:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups blanched almonds (cover raw almonds in boiling water for two minutes, drain, rinse, and then pop the skins off)
3/4 c. sugar, perhaps less though
2 egg whites
2 tbl. fresh lemon juice
2-4 cups fresh strawberries, in-season
1/2 c. apricot jam
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract ( I used my Dad's homemade stuff-divine!)
chopped nuts of your choice for garnish
2 shots of Amaretto, one for the citrus glaze, one for you, on the rocks

This is remarkably simple and gives a visually attractive result. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Start by getting some parchment paper and tracing with a pencil around an 8" cake pan, and place it on a bakingsheet.

Then put your blanched almonds and sugar in the Cuisinart and blend until they are a fine powder.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites and vanilla until frothy and add them to the mixture. Now if you have a pastry bag with a pipe, congratulations, fancy pants. If you wanna do it ghetto style, like us, get a plastic ziplock bag and stuff the almond paste into a corner of the bag. Then snip off the corner to make an opening of approximately 1/2".

Now, sqeezing the bag, pipe the almond paste in a spiral motion starting from THE CENTER of the circle you traced on the parchment paper. Place the tart in the oven and bake until it begins to brown, about 20 minutes.




Meanwhile, put the apricot jam, lemon juice and amaretto into a small saucepan and bring it to a boil. If you want, you can then strain it through a seive, but we like apricot chunks in keeping with our peasant tendencies (:

When the tart is cool enough to handle, brush the glaze on and toss the now halved strawberries in it. Be sure though to leave one berry whole to decorate the center of the tart. Arrange the berries on top as you like and let cool for at least an hour more.

We also threw in some bluberries for interest and then sprinkled some chopped pecans on top, in keeping with our in season options here on the Gulf Coast.

Post Script-this was a winner, totally delish. We served it with creme chantilly and it was lovely!