Month: May 2017
Veggie Tart
My Facebook news feed is generally filled with fun things that my friends are doing. When a “Suggested Post” (aka – annoying ad) shows up, I usually click Hide Ad because I hate seeing them.
Every once in a while, however, there is an ad that I like. That was the case recently when the Food Network had a video for “Rainbow Rose Veggie Tart” that showed up on my new feed. It sure looked tasty, so I wanted to give it a try. The original recipe can be found at Food.com.
After reading some of the reviews, I did decide to alter the recipe. The two main criticisms of the recipe were (1) the veggies were too stiff and (2) the cheese tart was too bland.
To reduce the stiffness of the vegetables, I precooked them in water for six minutes in the microwave. This resulted in soft, easy to roll veggie slices. To change the flavor, I decided to add some of the spices that I normally use when making quiche. The spices added a nice taste to the tart. The original recipe called for varied colored carrots. However, I found that the purple carrots lost their color in the precooking. Next time, I think I will try eggplant instead of purple carrots. I think they will keep their color better and add some additional flavor to the recipe.
So here is my version of the recipe.
Veggie Tart
1 sheet Puff Pastry
15 ounces Ricotta Cheese
1/2 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
3/4 cup shredded Parmesan Cheese
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp dry mustard
1/2 teaspoon chopped parsley
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon oregano
carrot, peeled
zucchini
broccoli
Enjoy!
Split Blocks – Fun and easy quilt piecing
Sometimes ads come up on my Facebook news feed that catch my attention. That happened recently with some fabrics. The offer was for pack of 5″ charm square, 102 pieces in all. The colors looked so nice and the price was excellent. So, I purchased a set. I had no idea what I was going to make with them, and I certainly didn’t need any more fabric. But, they were just too pretty to pass up.
Once they arrived, I started thinking about the many quilt patterns that I want to try. Since the pack was small 5″ squares, I knew that I couldn’t do anything really fancy with them. So, I decided to try some “split block” ideas.
Split block techniques involve sewing squares of fabric together, either jelly rolls, 5″ charms or other sizes, and then cutting them along different lines and/or angles to make new blocks.
The first idea I tried was an Interrupted Four Patch. This pattern involves sewing the charm squares alternately with a background fabric.
The sewn piece is then cut into strips 1/3 and 2/3 of the size of the blocks. A contrasting fabric strip is then sewn between each horizontally cut strip. This is repeated with vertical strips, borders added and the quilting completed.
The next idea I tried was the “Twister”. This pattern also involved sewing the charm squares together alternating with a background fabric.
Then the sewn piece is cut at an angle with a template, twisted to make pinwheels, and sewn together.
There are templates in a variety of sizes available for this quilt pattern. But, I really don’t need more templates, so I just drew temporary lines on my 4″ square template and used that.
For this quilt, I did not have enough fabric to make as many pinwheels as I needed. So, I decided to add pinwheels with quilting. Kinda a fun way to continue the pattern to a larger size.
Some interesting blocks to try in the future:
- Disappearing four patch
- Disappearing nine path
- Fence Rail