Bacon and Tomato Tart

Lately I have been making more of an effort to clean out my refrigerator and freezer. Summer is approaching quicker than I can shake my fist and I want to make room for some of its goodies. Remember those slow roasted tomatoes I made at the end of last summer? Well I still have a few of them lurking around in my freezer. I also had some puff pastry that I needed to use up. In my haste to make a recipe a while ago, I picked up a brand of puff pastry that didn't use all butter so I am trying to use it up before I switch to my brand that uses just butter. Fyi, in case you didn't know, there are some fancy brands that use just butter, but TJs makes a great puff pastry that is all butter as well and it is inexpensive. Anywho, back to the tart. I made it last night for an easy dinner, but can just as easily be made for a nice party or an appetizer for a dinner party. Even with forgetting to thaw my puff pastry earlier in the morning, I had this on the table relatively quick, just in time to watch Top Model...I mean, Damages. Oh, who am I kidding? I am so behind on Damages that I haven't even seen this current season yet and it just ended. No one tell me what happens. I will catch up, soon enough. I had to make some changes to the original recipe to use what I had on hand, but it was easy and really good. If you don't have slow roasted tomatoes laying around in your freezer, use fresh tomatoes..or even sun dried tomatoes would be good. If you like roasted red peppers, I am sure they would be great as well. I switched out the blue cheese for mozzarella I had left from pizza experiments and chives for parsley because I was too busy flirting with salad boy to remember to pick up fresh chives this past weekend at the FM. As always, I encourage you to play around with the flavors in this recipe. Maybe use some cheddar or Gruyere in place of the mozzarella or maybe another fresh herb instead of the parsley. That is what cooking is all about, isn't it?

Bacon and Tomato Tart
(Adapted from Salt and Chocolate)

Makes 2 6-inch tarts

2 puff pastry rounds, rolled out to about 6 inches in diameter
6 slow roasted tomato halves
2-4 tablespoons shredded mozzarella cheese
3 strips of bacon, chopped and cooked until crisp
1 tablespoon freshly chopped parsley

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place each puff pastry round on the parchment. Top each pastry with the tomatoes, leaving about a 1/4-inch boarder around. Top the tomatoes with a bit of cheese and bake for 15 minutes or until the pastry and cheese are golden brown.

Top immediately with the bacon and parsley and serve warm.