Tomato, Shallot and Goat Cheese Tart

I know I'm a little early for the tomato harvest, but I made this last night with some tomatoes from the Farmers Market as a "practice run" for my own harvest. You know had to check it out with their tomatoes before I was going to risk some of my own home grown gems ;)

I have got to say, this is tart is well worth using some of your harvest! I made a few tweaks to the recipe I found in my first issue of Heirloom magazine. Are any of you out there reading this magazine as well? If not I highly recommend it. It is put out by the folks at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and there are some pretty interesting articles! Not to mention yummy garden recipes...



This tomato tart was so simple. I'll admit, it was a crazy weekend and I had a bunch of studying and homework to do for my horticulture course, and I spend most of Saturday in the garden, so I used store bought pastry dough. But we'll keep that our little secret ;)

Tomato, Shallot and Goat Cheese Tart 
1 large sheet of frozen puff pastry
1/3 cup of goat cheese softened at room temp (I just eyeballed this)
3-4 medium tomatoes sliced and patted dry
2 shallots thinly sliced
chopped basil to sprinkle all over tart 
1 clove of garlic minced 
salt and pepper 
Olive Oil 


1. Thaw pastry dough according to directions. Spray tart pan with non-stick spray (If you don't have a tart pan, the original recipe from Heirloom says to just spread out on cookie sheet and you'll leave an edge to curl up around creating like a boat for the ingredients) 

2. Pre-Heat Over to 400F 


3. Spread the goat cheese on the pastry.  Place tomatoes and shallots all over the goat cheese.  Sprinkle with basil and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Drizzle about 2 TBsp of Olive Oil over tart. 


4. Bake 20-25 minutes until the crust is brown. Allow to cool for about 10 min before serving. 

Tart after baking

Leftovers kept well over night in the fridge. I zapped the tart in the microwave for 30 seconds and it tasted great!

Well...must go back to study latin names of landscape plants and identify them by their leaves. Of course tomatoes, peppers and herbs aren't on this test...noooo that'd be too easy ;)

I wish you all a wonderful week ahead!

Garden Harvest Basket

Well we are under a tornado warning until 2AM tonight, so that should tell you what kind of weather we're having today. So I thought I'd bring in a little of the garden and share with you this awesome new harvest basket I got! 

I am a a fan of anything hand made and local to be honest with you. I think there is a lost art to local handi-crafts. So I often jump at the chance to get something fun and unique.  I was reading through my new issue of Heirloom (its the quarterly magazine put out by the folks at Baker Creek Heirloom seeds, this was my first issue, and I love it! But thats for another post) and they had a quick blurb about these great harvest baskets for sale on Etsy. When I went to go look they're handmade in North Carolina, which pretty much sold me (okay okay I was sold when they said hand-made wooden garden harvest basket) 

This little beauty is there medium size, and made out of old tobacco wood and hardwood, and the produce can be hosed off prior to bringing it inside. 

Medium sized harvest basket

Now I don't normally like to do any advertisement for anyone on the blog but I just couldn't help share this with you. I'll include the link to their Etsy store so you can at least check it out for yourself! (http://www.etsy.com/listing/100422786/unique-fruit-vegetable-garden-harvesting)

I really can't wait until those little green tomatoes start turning and I can use this to harvest! (That is if the plants don't float away tonight) 

Here are a few more pictures. Please ignore the kitty "sniffing" the basket in the last one. I couldn't keep them away.... 

Seems like the perfect size for a small household garden

Something new ;) 

Supposed to clear up and be in the mid-70s tomorrow...great gardening day! Hope yours is just as wonderful! Cheers! 

Happy Gardening! 

Whatever happened to those tomato seeds?

I've been meaning to update on my tomato seedlings, but it seems like something is always getting in the way. I have somehow inadvertently angered the illness gods this year and have continually been sick, from the flu in Jan to salmonella poisoning in March to a cold ad ear ache I just can't shake the last few weeks. Perhaps I shall have to offer some tomatoes to them as a offering for less sickness next year.

I also finally started classes in Horticulture. Twice a week I spend the evenings after work in the gardens of a Virginia Tech extension center learning to identify plants. I can't complain, the classroom is wonderful!

So onto the tomatoes. If you'll remember I started these indoors hydroponically in Jan (MLK day weekend) and hardened them off outside in my cold frame for most of March and April. I moved them into the garden a few weeks ago and they seem to be thriving.

I gave some away of the plants away at work this year and I had a co-worker tell me how great his is doing. That just made my day! Im happy to hear feedback like that!

I'm a few weeks behind in clearing the new gardens (the interest was low in our community plots this year so I picked up 3 additional plots). Trying to figure out what to put in those. Such a tough problem to have (she smiles)

Onion Update ....

So I went away for the weekend, and came home to some green onions that grew great! I have been changing the water every other day, and that's ALL! I'm serious, they are sitting on my kitchen counter (I have no windows in my kitchen either by the way)

These are them on Sunday (I added three additional ones on Fri)

Just a reminder...these were them on Wednesday

Never Ending Green Onions????

Well I've been MIA again...sorry about that. I had the unfortunate opportunity to get salmonella poisoning late March/Early April and spent some time as a guest of the local hospital. I feel like I've been playing catch up ever since. Sadly my blogging has taken a back seat. I truly hope and plant to start making it a more regular occurrence. Especially this time of year!! :)

Just because I haven't been blogging doesn't mean I have been gardening. This year for some reason they didn't till our community gardens this year, so I had to learn how to do it by hand. Having mostly done pots this was new and umm...back breaking experience. But I got the job done this weekend and started planting. I plan on sharing more of that later

So I recently saw on Pintrest (who else is loving that site??) that if you don't cut up the white parts of green onions and place them in water, they'll continue to grow and produce more green parts to use. So I decided to finally put it to the test, and take you along on the experiment with me.

On Tuesday I made some Quinoa with green onions and avocados.  I placed the white parts of the green onions in water in a cleaned out spice jar I had lying around

Tuesday Evening...

By the time I woke up on Wednesday morning they had already started sprouting some new green parts.

Not the clearest picture but the green onion on the right the dark green part was new overnight

I'm looking forward to seeing how this experiment goes...I'll keep you apprised 

Moved to dirt...

Well I had to move three of my tomato seedlings to dirt tonight.... they were just getting too tall to be under the grow lamp and they were obstructing some of the smaller seedlings for getting the light.  I'll replace the pods with some new seeds tomorrow.

I hope they do okay in the dirt, I expect they'll wilt a bit at first as they're growing more sturdy roots, but hopefully not too bad. Here are the three of them, they're 4 week old seedlings...

4 week old tomato seedlings 

Here is a shot of my seedling obsession (yes it is an obsession) mind you I have a postage stamp sized rented yard, and a 10x10 community plot, so not a lot of room. I'll be giving away some seedlings this year to friends and co-workers. I think as of right now i have over 100 seedlings growing or germinating in my upstairs hallway.

A shot of a fraction of my seedlings

What the above picture doesn't show you, is the three jiffy green house boxes with over 36 more seedlings, plus the 3 new ones I bought today to grow a few more seeds. 

I can't help it, I love watching plants grow from seeds to full grown and providing vegetables and fruit and flowers for us to enjoy! 

A Little Spring Indoors

Yesterday was the Mid-Atlantic Home and Garden show in Virginia Beach.  I love Home and Garden shows. The gardens are always my favorite part. I love the displays the landscape companies put together. The time and effort that must go into them, only to be torn down 3 days later.   But I do love walking through all of them, and sitting and imagining they're my back yard.

This show was way more home than garden. I got to say, I drove about 90 minutes to get there (thank you traffic on the bridge tunnel no matter what time of day it seems like) and was a little disappointed.  There were very few display gardens (2-3 I think) and there were even fewer vendors there selling anything garden related.

Even the stage shows were mostly home related. I purposely missed the Sabrina Soto stage show (she's from HGTV) I actually love her shows, but the thought of the crowds made it less appealing. There were no garden talks that I saw on the schedule for Saturday. I would have loved to attend a talk on planting edibles in your yard etc...

I was able to get these adorable little crocus flowers in a small pot. So it made the drive worth it...sort of.

How were the Home and Garden shows in your regions?