Tartine Archives

We are awash in an embarrassment of seasonal produce right now. This week, the tables at the Farmer’s Market near me were groaning under the weight of local peaches and multi-coloured grape and cherry tomatoes. No heirloom tomatoes yet, maybe in a few weeks they told me.

I bought a big basket of peaches and some of them will make their way into peach hand pies for my son-in-law, a hand pie aficionado. Some will be turned into peach-blueberry crisp, for my husband. Some of the peaches will be diced and mixed into my morning yogurt and some will be just eaten out of hand, juices dripping down my forearm.

The rest of the peaches will be used for lunch. We’re making tartines. Tartine is the French word to describe any open-faced sandwich. Start with roasting the little tomatoes. It really enhances their sweetness and adds a lovely texture to the dish. Anoint the tomatoes with olive oil, honey, thyme and a pinch of red pepper flakes.

Luckily my peaches were freestone and not the annoying cling variety. Freestone and cling refer to the peach flesh either coming away cleanly from the pit (freestone), like in the video below, or clinging stubbornly to the pit (cling).

The cheese variety in this video is burrata. Burrata, is the Italian word for “buttered”. It is made from fresh mozzarella. While it looks quite similar to a ball of fresh mozzarella, what differs is what’s on the inside . It is filled with a soft, stringy curd and fresh cream. It has a milky, buttery delicate flavour that’s rich and creamy. If you can’t find burrata, fresh mozzarella or bocconcini will also be quite delicious.

I made a basil oil to drizzle over the tartine, as a finishing touch. It’s as simple as whizzing some fresh basil, spinach (helps to preserve the green colour), and oil in the blender for 3 minutes. Strain it and you have a gorgeous finishing oil. Don’t forget the sprinkle of flaky sea salt.

Click here to print recipe for Tomato Peach and Burrata Tartine.

If you’re one of those people that pick all the big clumps of granola out of the bag, leaving the little crumbs for the rest of your family, then this granola bark is for you.The recipe comes from the cookbook Tartine All Day, by pastry chef Elizabeth Prueitt. She and her husband, bread baker extraordinaire, Chad Robertson, are the owners of the Tartine Bread empire in San Francisco.

I recently sorted through all my cookbooks and got rid of a big pile that just didn’t bring me joy anymore. I wasn’t planning to buy any new ones. We’re in declutter mode around here these days. But I’m happily willing to make room for this book on my shelf. It is filled with inspiration for way we want to eat now, melding new ingredients with old techniques. These are the recipes that Prueitt cooks for her family everyday.

Start by gathering the dry ingredients. Rolled oats (not quick cooking), pumpkin seeds, unsweetened coconut, golden flax seed, sesame seeds, cinnamon, whole almonds and ground almonds (almond flour). Feel free to substitute other seeds and nuts. Chia seeds and sunflower seeds would be good. Pecans instead of almonds would be delicious. For Nutella fans, try using hazelnut flour instead of the almond flour.For the liquid ingredients, maple syrup is simmered with water, coconut sugar, and salt until the sugar dissolves. Prueitt calls for vegetable or olive oil, but I used coconut oil. The final liquid ingredient is an egg white, which helps make the granola bark extra crispy.Before baking, it is important to press the granola quite firmly into the pan. The easiest way to do this is to cover the granola with a sheet of parchment paper and press a second pan over the bark.

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Once baked and cooled, break bark into big pieces and pile them into a big glass jar and set it on the counter for snacking.
Or crumble it up into your yogurt for breakfast.

Salt and Serenity

Tales from my kitchen

Tag Archives: Tartine

Tomato Peach and Burrata Tartine

Granola Bark

Click here to print recipe for Granola Bark.