We had this meal a couple of weeks ago and I think we’ll have to have it again soon. It was really tasty. The original recipe called for chicken thighs but it worked really well with chicken breasts. You could probably go with skinless and boneless (that would take less cooking time) but go ahead and live a little and use bone-in breasts.

Seriously, this was really good. Give it a few days before you actually want to cook again after Thursday and then make this…

Braised Chicken with Apples and Sage
Adapted from a recipe in Gourmet magazine
2 big chicken breasts with skin and bones (you could probably get away with 3-4 breasts with the amount of sauce that this makes, but lost of sauce is good so it woks with 2 breasts fine)
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp packed brown sugar
2 apples (preferably Gala; 3/4 lb total), peeled, cored, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges — I used one Gala and one Granny Smith, and I didn’t peel
1/4 cup toasted walnuts
1/2 cup chopped shallots (2 to 3) — I subbed half a white onion as I didn’t have any shallots
2/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 tsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp chopped fresh sage (rosemary would work well too)

Pat chicken dry and sprinkle all over with salt and pepper. Heat oil in a 12-inch heavy skillet over moderately high heat until hot but not smoking, then brown chicken well, starting with skin sides down and turning over once, 10 to 12 minutes total. Transfer chicken to a plate and pour off some of the fat if you have a lot in the pan — you want about 1 tablespoon in the skillet.

Add butter, brown sugar, apples, walnuts and shallots to fat in skillet and cook over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until apples are browned, about 5 minutes.

Add broth, vinegar, and sage and deglaze skillet by boiling, stirring and scraping up any brown bits, 1 minute. Return chicken, skin sides up, to skillet along with any juices accumulated on plate. Reduce heat and simmer, loosely covered with foil, until chicken is cooked through and sauce is slightly reduced, 30-35 minutes. Check the temperature — you want it to be about 165 degrees.

Mmmm….it’s moist and tasty!

Okay, off to California Wednesday. Have a nice Thanksgiving, everyone!

Sugar High Friday, hosted by Cream Puffs in Venice is all about figs this month. Awesome. I really like figs. For this SHF I turned towards perhaps the perfect cookbook for this event — The Girl and the Fig cookbook, one that I really like. In fact, I’m trying to finagle my way into lunch or dinner there next time we’re near Sonoma. But, back to SHF, I’m going to guess I’m not the only one who makes something out of this book given the theme. We’ll see…

Anyway, this was wonderful! A lot of steps, but it makes a great Saturday afternoon project. I did halve the recipe (I used a square 8 inch X 8 inch baking pan) and still ended up freezing about half of it for later snacking — it’s very rich.

Warm Fig & Thyme Crisp with Fig Syrup
Pastry:
2 cups walnut halves
6 tbsp + 3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
4 1/2 cups AP flour
3/4 lb (3 sticks) unsalted butter, thinly sliced
3 tsp vanilla extract
3 egg yolks

Jam:
2 1/2 pounds dried figs (I used about half dried figs and half fresh figs, which, for my halved recipe turned out to be 1 8-oz bag of dried figs and 1 pint of fresh figs)
3/4 cup granulated sugar
zest of 3 lemons
1 bunch thyme, tied with twine
3 tbsp lemon juice

Port-Fig Syrup:
2 cups Port
5 dried Black Mission figs, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 clove
1/2 cup sugar

Pastry
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a food processor, grind the walnuts (until medium-fine) with the tablespoons of sugar and set aside. Don’t worry, you’ll come back to them, but not until you’re ready to assemble the crisp. Next, mix the 3/4 cup granulated sugar, the brown sugar, salt, baking powder and flour until well combined. Add the butter and mix until the mixture clumps, about 2 minutes.

Add the vanilla and egg yolks to the mixture and mix for 40 seconds. Pack two-thirds of the dough into the bottom of a 9 X 12 inch ungreased pan and bake until it’s lightly golden — about 25-30 minutes.

Jam
To make the Jam, combine the figs, sugar, lemon zest thyme and lemon juice and pour in enough water to cover. Bring to a boil and boil for 10 minutes. Don’t be shy with the water. I was kinda skimpy and had to add more water half way through cooking. Go ahead and really cover everything from the beginning.

Reduce the heat and simmer until the figs are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove the thyme. Puree the mixture in a food processor.

Syrup
Heat the figs, port, cinnamon and clove in a pan over medium heat and reduce to about 1/2 cup. Strain the sauce, pushing on the figs to get as much juice out as possible. Whisk in the sugar and serve.

Assembley
Spread the jam evenly over the baked dough.

In a bowl, crumble together the remaining third of the dough with the walnut and sugar mixture. Sprinkle this mixture over the jam and bake for about 50 minutes. (If you make a half recipe in a smaller pan, give it about 35 minutes).

Cut into pieces and serve warm with vanilla ice cream (or frozen yogurt) and drizzle with the port sauce. So amazingly decadent! And delicious!

Thanks again to Ivonne for hosting and coming up with a tasty theme! I can’t wait to see all of the fig recipes.

For this Weekend Cookbook Challenge we’re supposed to pick a cookbook that we want everyone to know about. Well, honestly, this one was pretty easy for me. The Farmhouse Cookbook by Susan Herman Loomis is one of my most favorite cookbooks ever. Ever! It’s also one of the first cookbooks I ever bought. From the cover:

“A cook’s two-year odyssey through the small farms, ranches, dairies, vineyards and orchards of America, with 300 recipes fresh from their kitchens.”

For those who like to read cookbooks as a type of story, it really doesn’t get any better than this one. It also has such a great collection of eclectic and interesting recipes. Here are just some I’ve made since I first got the cookbook in 1991:

* Lamb Chops with a Hazelnut Crust and Rosemary Cream Sauce (for jwa’s 27th birthday dinner — for reference, he just celebrated his 36th birthday. Scary!)
* Mary Navarette’s Garlicky Enchiladas
* Chilled Honeydew Soup
* Blueberry Muffins
* Sunburst Lentil Salad

But, for this event, I made something new, “Becky Campbell’s Chicken with Carambola.” Well, I kind of did. See, I thought it was starfruit (carambola) season but I couldn’t find any at all. Anywhere. So, I substituted gold kiwi. I think it worked well but the next time I see some starfruit, I will pick some up and make this again!

Becky Campbell’s Chicken with Carambola
1 3.5 to 4 lb. chicken cut in pieces (since there were only two of us, I used 2 bone-in chicken breasts, which was probably about 1.5 to 2 lb total)
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup lie juice
zest of 2 limes
2 small onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 tbsp honey
1 tbsp fresh ginger; minced
1 serrano or jalapeno with seeds; minced
4 carambola (or kiwi if you have to sub) cut in 1/4″ thick slices
salt & pepper
1/2 cup almonds, raw and whole
1 small bunch cilantro

Rinse chicken well and pat it thoroughly dry. In a large bowl, whisk together olive oil, lime juice and zest, onions, honey, ginger and minced pepper. Stir in three-fourths of the carambola slices. Then add the chicken, and turn it until it is coated with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate overnight, or up to 2 days, turning the chicken occasionally so it marinates evenly. I just used a freezer bag and squished it around every so often.

Now, I deviated from the recipe slightly by browning my chicken first. So, season the chicken with salt and pepper and then brown the chicken quickly on each side in a hot pan, about 2 minutes per side. If the skin gets a little too brown (the honey can burn a little), you can always pull the skin off before serving.

Arrange chicken in a single layer in a 9 x 13″ baking dish. Add almonds to the marinade, stir, and spoon it over the chicken. If you used an oven-proof pan to sear the chicken, you can also just do all of this in the pan.

Bake at 375 F. in the center of the oven, basting frequently with pan juices and turning any chicken pieces that get too brown, about 30 minutes. Add remaining carambola, stir, and continue cooking until the chicken is golden and a thigh yields clear juice when pricked at its thickest part, 15 to 20 minutes. Now, for my two chicken breasts, they were in the oven for about 35 minutes total — 25 minutes, then I added the extra kiwi, then about 10 more minutes and they were done. Use a thermometer and check the temp as needed.

Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning. Just before serving, mince the cilantro if you are using it. Serve chicken right from the baking dish, or divide among four warmed dinner plates. Spoon sauce over the chicken, garnish with cilantro and serve. We had the chicken with jasmine rice made green by some pureed spinach in the cooking broth.

Using chicken breasts with the bone and skin really kept it all moist. All in all, we were both very pleased with this meal! The breasts were so big, we even had leftovers for lunch the next day. As always, thanks again to Sara at Weekend Cookbook Challenge for another great event!

I have been meaning to make a blueberry pie all Summer — in fact, I have always wanted to make a blueberry pie. Unfortunately, I hadn’t done so yet but then I came across some tasty looking berries at Limbo and was inspired. Sure I was hot and yes, I was kind of lazy. That’s when I decided a blueberry crumble would be just as good. It was. Was there really any doubt? Nope. So, grab yourself some blueberries, a lemon, some assorted crumble accoutrements and you’re all set.

And, as if that was not enough, as an experiment, I mixed up some plain, non-fat yogurt, seeds from a vanilla bean, a little sugar and some cinnamon and threw it in the ice cream maker. I didn’t strain it or anything, just mixed it all up and that’s it. I ended up
with some pretty tasty non-fat frozen yogurt for the top of the crumble.

Blueberry-Hazelnut Crumble
Slightly based on a crumble recipe from the Whole Foods web site
2.5 cups blueberries (about a pint)
1 tsp sugar
1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup oats
1/4 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Rinse the berries and drain thoroughly. Put the blueberries in a mixing bowl and add lemon juice, sugar and one half tablespoon of flour. Set aside until you are all ready with the crumble topping.

In a food processor, pulse together the remaining ingredients until they resemble coarse breadcrumbs. Okay, fine, course breadcrumbs made of butter, oats, sugar and nuts.

Combine, and pour the blueberries into four 1 1/2-cup ramekins. You could, of course, just make one big crumble in a 9-inch pie pan. Next, cover the berries with the topping and bake for thirty minutes until the top has browned and the fruit is bubbling.

You may have a little topping leftover — just store it in the fridge and make yourself another small, single-sized crumble one night after work. Shhh!

Can be served hot or at room temperature. Goes very well with ice cream or frozen yogurt — store bought or experimental.

Coming up also this week: a fish dish with olives, capers and…bacon (!) and September’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge from one of my most favorite cookbooks of all time.

For Weekend Cookbook Challenge #19 the theme is dinner and a DVD and is being hosted by Chef Girl. For this WCC, I pulled out my brand new copy of The Joy of Cooking and thumbed through the seafood section as one of the movies we had at the house via netflix, was, “Lady in the Water.” It’s a little bit odd, unexpected, it makes you wonder if it’ll be any good or not. Then there’s the movie. Hahahahaha. Just kidding.

And, if I hadn’t just started a new job, I would have picked a well-loved and favorite movie for this and not just used the most recent netflix option but, hell, I am tired — Lady in the Water it is. Although, we are at some point planning a Rushmore / The Royal Tenenbaums dinner film festival soon. It just didn’t happen for this WCC event.

Anyway, vanilla bean in a coconut-y, somewhat Asian-inspired shrimp dish — could it work? Let’s find out!

Vanilla Coconut Shrimp
Based on a recipe in The Joy of Cooking, although, I added the garlic, shitake and red bell pepper
1/ 4 cup olive oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
12 shitake mushrooms, sliced, stems removed
1 red bell pepper, sliced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups dry white wine
1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped out
1 cup chicken or vegetable broth
1 14 1/2 oz coconut milk
2 tsp minced ginger
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
1 lb large shrimp, peeled and deveined (I had a bit under this amount — 10 large shrimp total — worked fine)
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
cooked rice or pasta

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the shallots, garlic, mushrooms and belle pepper (it’s a lady pepper!). Cook about 5 minutes and then add the wine and vanilla bean. Bring to a simmer ad reduce the wine by half — about 7-8 minutes.

Next, add the broth, coconut milk, ginger, salt and pepper. Bring to a simmer again and reduce sauce by half — about 8-10 minutes.

Th shrimp goes in next. Turn it once while cooking, for a total of about 8 minutes.

Also, don’t forget to cook your pasta or rice. Hey — what’s this in my pasta water? Oh, it’s a Stash lemon & ginger herbal tea bag for a little extra flavor.

Serve the shrimp and coconut-vanilla sauce over the pasta (or rice) and top with the basil. Pop your movie in and pour some wine.

We found that yelling out, “I’m not drinking any fucking merlot,” periodically throughout the movie (especially during suspenseful moments) is much fun — and we were drinking a sauvignon blanc so it was factual as well.

Both jwa and I were pleasantly surprised by how well the vanilla and coconut milk came together. This was a very good meal made even better by a simple yet delightful dessert of vanilla frozen yogurt, peaches and port. Did that have anything to do with the movie? Not really, it was just tasty.

As for the movie, I thought it was okay. It was definitely missing that creepy in the ordinary, atmospheric vibe that I expected but Paul Giamatti carried it the best he could.

Thanks again to Chef Girl for such a great theme!

So, you might think that with a week off, I would be all lazy this week and not post. Nope. A really tasty salad today and hopefully, a tribute to Julia Child tomorrow. After that? Yep, probably lazy.

This was a quick meal for a hot day when jwa was working late and I wanted a big bowl of…something. Thankfully, it was too hot for pasta so a salad worked out perfectly. For the dressing, I didn’t really measure, I just know I used the ingredients in the ratio listed below. Start there and tweak as needed.

Blueberry-Goat Cheese Spinach Salad
1 bunch spinach, washed and torn (or baby spinach)
1 pint blueberries, washed
1/4 cup walnuts, toasted
1/4 - 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese
2 tbsp Walla Walla onion, diced finely (or any sweet onion will work)

Dressing
1 part honey
2 part balsamic vinegar
3 parts extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper

Make the dressing:
In a small bowl or mug, whisk the honey and vinegar together. Slowly drizzle in the oilve oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper and adjust anything else. Done.

Salad:
In a big bowl, add the spinach, onion, blueberries, cheese and walnuts. Toss. Drizzle dressing to your liking and toss again. Done. Eat. Mmmm…

In wedding news, my dress is in! Hooray. I go pay the balance Wednesday and then they store it for me until, like, March and then I start the fittings for it. It’s so weird, there was a big flurry of activity a couple of months ago with the location, photographer, caterer and officiant and now, there’s like nothing to do for a while. I guess the next thing we’ll do is find a musician but probably not until this Fall or so. Ho-hum.

This recipe is from Bon Appétit magazine and makes a great Summer dessert. I thought the filling maybe needed a bit more ooomph — next time, I may add a teaspoon or two of orange or lemon liqueur. Of course, this might also be because I used “light” cream cheese. Perhaps that was a mistake. Next time? Bring on the fat.

To get the crust nicely padded into the tart pan, I usually use a shot glass to help flatten the bottom and press the sides up. This works very well. I forget where I learned that tip but I did not make it up myself.

Use ripe, tasty nectarines for this — you will not be sorry.

Crust
25 gingersnap cookies, coarsely broken (about 6 ounces; about 2 1/4 cups pieces)
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted

Filling
1 8-ounce container mascarpone cheese
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 tbsp grated lemon peel
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger
Optional: 1-2 tsp of your favorite citrusy liqueur (Grand Marnier? Limoncello?)

Topping
4 to 5 small nectarines, halved, pitted, cut into thin slices
1/4 cup peach jam, warmed
2 tbsp finely chopped crystallized ginger

For crust:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Finely grind gingersnaps in processor. Add butter and blend until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press mixture over bottom and up sides of 9-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Use a shot glass for a nice, even surface!

Bake crust until color darkens, pressing sides with back of spoon if beginning to slide, about 8 minutes. Cool completely.

For filling:
Beat first 6 ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. Beat in crystallized ginger. Liqueur? Spread filling in prepared crust. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least 2 hours and up to 1 day.

For topping:
Overlap nectarine slices atop filling in concentric circles. Don’t feel bad if you get lazy by the time you get to the center. I did.

Brush with jam. Sprinkle with chopped crystallized ginger. Remove sides of tart pan by putting the tart on a can or jar and pulling the rim down. Serve, or refrigerate up to 6 hours.

***

I have read a bunch of great books lately. I thought I would share:

Spin

The Last Chinese Chef

One Thousand White Women

I have started a new personal project. That project is to clean out both the cabinet and freezer of stuff that’s been in there quite a while and that I haven’t used yet. Step one, of course, is checking the dates (of the canned items at least). After that? Anything goes. And the first thing to go is the smoked trout.

After ascertaining that my can of smoked trout was still within it’s usable time period, I hunted for a recipe. Most of the interesting ones included some kind of smoked trout/apples/horseradish combination. Sounded good to me. As usual, jwa was skeptical, as he tends to be with meals that involve fish that we normally don’t eat often, but it ended happily.

Now, I will mention that I thought I had two tins of smoked trout, but then I remembered that I gave one away for the Postal Service food drive last weekend, so I only had one tin to work with here. That said, what I
made was enough for two people but I think two tins of trout would have been better. It seemed a little heavy on the apple, if you know what I mean.

So, if you want more substantial wraps, use two tins of fish. Keep in mind that you may need to up the mayo/horseradish. You could also, of course, just use the whole recipe here to make yourself one big, huge tasty wrap.

Smoked Trout, Horseradish and Green Apple Wraps
(feeds 1-2 people)
1 can smoked trout (about 1 small fillet)
1 tsp horseradish (or more to taste)
2 green onions, chopped or snipped
1 green apple, diced
1 tbsp chopped parsley
1/4 cup mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 a lemon
salt & pepper
2 tortilla wraps
1/2 cup sprouts, spinach or the sandwich greens of your choice
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese

Rinse the trout if it’s packed in oil and flake gently into the bowl. Add the mayonnaise, horseradish, lemon juice, parsley, green onion and apple cubes. Mix to combine and taste, adding salt and pepper as needed.

Lay a tortilla out on a plate and put a healthy layer of sprouts/lettuce down the middle (about 1/4 cup per wrap). Top with the salad and then sprinkle with a tablespoon or so of the Parmesan cheese.

Roll up, slice and enjoy.

Oh, in other news I finally snagged a pint of Americone Dream at the Safeway on Hawthorne. Hooray for truthiness!

Look, strawberry season is upon us, so says the new issue of Bon Appétit (June 2007), which is where this delicious recipe comes from. I made these little chocolatey shortcakes for dessert when jwa’s parents were over for dinner Saturday night. Making the biscuits one day ahead worked well and it was also easy to make the strawberries a couple of hours before serving. All the make ahead possibilities are very helpful when having guests over.

You may notice that recipe calls for whipping cream to make the biscuits. Oh, my. Now, I normally would have subbed the cream with 2% milk (and not whipped it) but since this was for company, I went ahead and used the cream. That’s what makes it decadent! I also drizzled a little extra Grand Marnier onto the biscuits before covering with the strawberries.

Biscuits
1 1/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 cup chilled whipping cream (and perhaps 2-3 tbsp more)
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Strawberries
2 pounds small strawberries, hulled, quartered (about 3 1/2 cups)
4 tbsp powdered sugar, divided
1/4 cup fresh orange juice
2 tbsp Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur (optional: 6 extra tsp of the liqueur)
1/2 tsp finely grated orange peel
Pinch of salt

1 cup chilled whipping cream
Orange zest for garnish

For the biscuits
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment. Whisk first 5 ingredients in large bowl. Using electric mixer, beat cream and vanilla in medium bowl until firm peaks form.

Stir cream into flour mixture until moist clumps form. Transfer mixture to lightly floured surface and knead gently until dough forms ball, about 10 turns.

Too crumbly…

I found that I needed more moisture here, so I added a couple of tablespoons more cream until I managed to knead a ball.

Just right…

Pat the dough out to 3/4-inch thickness. Using 3-inch cutter, cut out biscuits. Gather dough, pat out again, and cut out total of 6 biscuits. Place biscuits on prepared baking sheet.

Bake biscuits until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean, about 15 minutes. Transfer to rack; and cool. Let stand at room temperature until serving or cool completely and store in an airtight container until using.

For strawberries:
Stir strawberries, two tablespoons (I decreased this from the recipe’s original six tablespoons) powdered sugar, and next four ingredients in medium bowl. Cover and chill at least two hours and up to five hours.

Next, using electric mixer, beat chilled whipping cream and remaining two tablespoons powdered sugar until soft peaks form. You could also add a little more (one teaspoon or so) of the Grand Marnier. You know, just for fun. Now, place one biscuit on each of your plates. I popped the biscuits in the microwave for about 30 seconds to warm them up just a bit. Then, after plating four of them, I drizzled about 1 teaspoon of Grand Marnier on each biscuit.

To finish it, place a few large spoonful of berries with juices atop the biscuits. Top with whipped cream. Now, whatever will we do with the leftover two chocolate biscuits?

Here’s a picture of the huge lamb platter I made for dinner — red wine, rosemary & garlic grilled lamb tenderloin over lentils and carrots with sauteed zucchini and asparagus on the side. Oh and the awesome toasted Parmesan flatbread from Eating Well magazine.

I think I totally forgot about last month’s Weekend Cookbook Challenge. That makes me sad as I think that’s the first one I’ve missed for the past year or so. I’m also going to blame it on my cold last month and rejoin WCC this month as if nothing had happened…la-la-la-la-la.

So, for WCC#16 the theme is “something new”. Perfect timing, as I just got a new book while in Ashland last month — Shakespeare’s Kitchen: Renaissance Recipes for the Contemporary Cook by Francine Segan.

It’s really a beautiful book and a lot of the recipes caught my eye but the chicken plum tart was the one I wanted to try first. I did change a few things, though (as is my way, it appears). The original recipe seemed kind of dessert-y with cinnamon, brown sugar and cloves. Instead, I opted to try adding fresh thyme and feta cheese. My changes are in the recipe below, but I’ve also listed the original ingredients if you want to make the authentic version.

Chicken Plum Pie
1 lb cooked chicken meat, shredded
2 plums, pitted and diced
1 plum, cut into slices
1 tbsp butter, melted
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup feta cheese
3 tbsp chicken stock
1 tbsp Parmesan cheese
Salt + pepper

Alternately, you can omit the thyme and feta and follow the real Shakespearean recipe and instead use a pinch of ground cloves, 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1/2 tsp ground mace.

Renaissance Dough
2 cups sifted, loosely packed pastry flour (I admit I used AP flour for this)
1/2 cup ice water
1/2 tsp salt
1 large egg, beaten
1/2 cup butter, cut into small cubes
1 tbsp chives, snipped (my addition — if you’re making the sweeter version, omit the chives)

The actual recipe in the cookbook described a process where you mix the flour, egg, water and salt together on a cold surface and then roll the butter into the dough. Some people could probably have this work just fine for them. Me? I opted to make this dough how I make all my doughs — in a food processor. Quite honestly, the Renaissance was 500+ years ago and I have a food processor at my disposal and I am lazy. So there.

Pulse the butter into the flour, salt and chives. Add the egg, Pulse. Then add water until the dough comes together (although it’ll be a little crumbly). You can also use the above-mentioned rolling pin method or one of those wiry, pastry blenders, forks or your fingers. Whatever works best for you.

Gather up into a ball and refrigerate for at least an hour. When ready to use, divide in half and roll one half out for your tart. The other half can be refrigerated for a few more days and used later in the week for something fun. Or, you could also just make a half recipe of the dough for this tart. I opted for fun. But more on that later.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thickness and press into a round tart pan or even a square baking pan. Prick all over with a fork to avoid the air bubbles. Bake for 10-15 minutes until it starts to get a bit golden. If you have extra dough, you can always roll it out and use a cookie cutter to make fun shapes for the top.

Combine the chicken, thyme, stock, feta and diced plums in a bowl (or, omit the thyme and feta and add the cloves, mace, cinnamon and brown sugar instead). Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon the mixture into the pie crust and drizzle the butter over the top. Sprinkle with the Parmesan (or brown sugar). Bake for about 40 minutes, until the crust is golden, the filling is all bubbly and the plums have caramelized a bit. Let cool for a few minutes, then slice and serve. We had ours with a spinach salad which was a wonderful combination.

It was really good. An interesting combination of meat and fruit. I liked the thyme and feta a lot, it made it seem more like a chicken pie with fruit rather than a fruit pie with chicken.

Since I made a full dough recipe, I had a ball of Renaisssance dough leftover. What to do? Well, I used it to make an olive, tomato, provolone and artichoke heart tart. I pre-baked the tart shell and then lined it with slices of provolone cheese. Then came a mixture of chopped artichoke hearts and olives, then I poured over a custard (1/4 cup evaporated skim milk + 2 eggs whisked together along with some salt and pepper) and tomato slices. Okay, fine, I also sprinkled Parmesan cheese over the top.

I baked it for about an hour at 350 degrees and it was another dinner (and breakfast the next day for jwa and I). Excellent. Thanks again, as always, to Sara of Weekend Cookbook Challenge and all around great blogger and cook.

Crap. Now I have to vaccum.