Provençal Tart

It's a Saturday night {Sunday night equivalent} and I am committed to cooking a recipe from The Food of France . . .

Ready. Set. COOK!  Oh, it's 6pm and I've got to get this tart on the table.  Nevermind that we usually eat at 6.30ish.  Ok, quick scan of the recipe, trusting that I have all of the necessary ingredients . . . and . . . BLAST and DAMNATION!  Total prep and cooking time is approximately 3 hours!  

I remove a tin of Baked Beans from the pantry, decant and bubble for approximately 5 minutes.  Meanwhile, I retrieve some frozen slices of bread and plop them unceremoniously into the toaster and push the lever down, down, down.  Pop!  I butter the toast, spoon out the beans and present my 'by-the-camp-fire' stand-by to the Mr. He is not amused!

It's Sunday {Monday equivalent} and I've just walked through the door after a day of teaching at Zee German School.  I march straight into the kitchen and begin to prepare a short-crust pastry dough.  I bundle it into the fridge and begin to sauté a finely chopped white onion.  Knowing better, I score a cross on 10 deliciously ripe tomatoes and drop them into a pot of boiling water for about 20 seconds.  Having peeled the skins away, and chopped the tomatoes, I realise that opening a tin would have been preferable to this hullabaloo!  I make a quick note on the recipe, 'Use Tinned Tomatoes!'

I add the tomatoes, tomato purée, garlic and oregano to the sautéed onions, to simmer for 20 minutes.  

I remove the pastry from the fridge and I roll, rather clumsily into a rectangle befitting my baking tray.  I attempt to loosely wrap the rolled result back over my rolling pin {a perfect cylindrical, 375ml bottle of Brown Brothers Orange Muscat and Flora} to lay upon the baking tray.  To put it mildly, I suck at this, but I am not the least bit deterred, as I know that I can plug any rips and gaps with excess pastry.

I cover the pastry with clingwrap and chill it for a further 30 minutes.  I give my tomato sauce a quick stir and with the oven set to 200C I place two, halved peppers, under the grill until their skin blackens and blisters.

Once the peppers have cooled, I peel away the skins and cut into thin strips.  I line the pastry shell with baking paper and dried beans, to blind bake for 10 minutes. I have finally reached the stage where I can assemble the tart and it a quarter to 6 in the afternoon!  In that case, I have time to take a quick self-portrait.  Why type a smiley face when I can be the smiley face . . .

I spread the tomato sauce over the pastry, then scatter with peppers.  I arrange the anchovies and olives over the top and spray {did she say spray?!?} with olive oil.  10 minutes in, and I realise that I have left the grill at the top of the oven, ON!  Regardless, all goes well and we are sitting down to a glass of wine and a large slice of Provençal Tart after 25 minutes.

It's 6.30pm on a Sunday evening {Monday evening equivalent} and I'm feeling proud that the working week has kicked off with a bang!  Sure, I'm not getting through my cook book at the speed I had originally committed to, but life is grand and I'm learning new things while our bellies are full and our hearts contented.