Tomato Tart Goat Cheese Herb Salad with Homemade Crème Fraîche & Ricotta

The fresh and sunny glow of summer tomatoes is fully echoed in this dish. I can’t decide whether this is really a salad or a tart. More important, the taste is tomato forward, at its peak flavor and in its true essence. I love the concentrated flavor of slow-roasted tomatoes, showcased in this Curtis Stone’s recipe. The administrators and friends at IHCC have the good taste and foresight to pick “you say tomato, I say tomahto” as the cooking theme in mid July. They are the best! Hands down.

The list of ingredients may seem long. However, the shopping list is quite short, for me, only two: tomatoes and goat cheese. Most of the herbs come from the garden. Mother nature provides the fresh picked greens: basil, thyme, rosemary, chives and parsley. I left out the chervil; the plant has perished. The rest of the ingredients are everyday items from the pantry. Even the pie dough came from leftover pastry dough scraps found in the refrigerator. No store-bought puff pastry is necessary.

Other key components of the dish: crème fraîche and ricotta, the homemade varieties, can be made ahead with relative ease. They taste remarkably fresh and sublime compared to the factory packaged counterparts. You can almost taste raw cow milk. Making crème fraîche or ricotta at home may not be as convenient as picking up a container of the ready-made one from the store, but the reward is unparalleled. For a long time, I’d regularly succumbed to the convenience route — the path of least resistance, until I started experimenting with the DIY approach. Once you’ve tasted the unbelievable freshness of homemade crème fraîche and ricotta, it becomes clear that there is no going back. If you haven’t made them before, I urge you to give them a try.

The finished tomato tart with goat cheese and herbs is simply divine. The taste of prime summer tomatoes at their best, sweet and acidic. Creamy glob of melted cheese. Flaky crusty pastry. Faint note of fresh herbs. To the very least, these flavorful delightful treats offer a temporary reprieve, and even joy, if you will, from the oppressive July heat, heartbreak and horrific events of the past weeks.

Tomatoes are oven-roasted st 250°F for over two hours

roasted tomatoes & goat cheese mix topped the pastry round