Home Sweet Home:Summer Fruit Tart

It was nice to wake up in my own bed this morning after 11 nights away.

After so many days of work, I did  manage to fit in two days of fun in Paris over the weekend before heading home. Saturday was Bastille Day, which is French National Day, a patriotic holiday marked by parades and fireworks. This fruit tart - made for the 4th of July - is my tribute to my mini trip, and liberty and equality for all.

For the last few summers, I've been looking for a simple, reliable fruit tart recipe to deal with my weekly farmers' marked binges. I don't want anything fussy or complicated or that will take hours to make. Summer is for simple food and great produce.

Those of you reading for some time may remember one of my more notable flops: the Zombie Pie. Further attempts were no better than the original. So, I moved on.

But here is this summer's version: the Fruit Cream Tart.  Much prettier than the Zombie Pie, no? King Arthur Flour Baker's Companion, you have redeemed yourself!

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I used a basic Pate Sucree tart crust, which is quick and easy to make. But you could also use a pie crust - home made or store bought. The filling is even less challenging with a very interchangeable list of ingredients.

Fruit Cream Pie (or Tart)

1 1/2 c buttermilk, milk (any %) or cream
3 large eggs
3 tbsp flour
1/2 - 1c sugar to taste
1/4 tsp spice of your choice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, allspice...) optional
3 cups whole berries or other fruit cut into small dice

Roll out your pie crust and put in a 9" pie pan. Beat eggs and buttermilk together. Beat in flour, sugar and spice. Arrange fruit in the bottom of pie pan. Top with milk mixture. Bake 425 for 15 min on bottom rack. Reduce heat to 350 and bake for additional 35-50min. until a spot 2 inches from the crust is set. Cool. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

As usual, I made a number of changes. First, I used a 10 1/2" tart pan instead of a pie pan. I cut the entire recipe back by 1/3 (so used just 2/3 of the recipe as written). I used a mix of blueberries and strawberries. Instead of a spice, I used about 1/2 tsp of vanilla. Since I was making a shallower tart, I cut back the baking time to 12 minutes at 425 and then 25 minutes at 350.

Voila! The tart was lovely and delicious and refreshing!

Much prettier than Zombie Pie! Yay!

Anyway, it's great to be home. Regular posting shall resume shortly!

Wet Greetings from London: V&A

Greeting from Merry Ole (Rainy) England!  Today was my one free/non-work day on this trip. So, I spent the first half at the Victoria & Albert Museum seeing the Ballgowns exhibit. It was pretty great.

Some of the dresses in the exhibition had accompanying pictures of who wore them on the red carpet. It was fun to see these dresses in person. The collection ran from vintage (1950's) right up to the present.

The dress I was most excited to see was this:

Alexander McQueen

This is a version of the dress that Daphne McGuinness wore to the MET Costume Institute Gala the year they honored Alexander McQueen (2011). She got ready for that gala in the window of Barney's New York as an art installation. Crazy, no? Don't get me wrong, I would not wear this dress, but it was absolutely fabulous to see in person.  (By the way, if you love red carpet fashion and like to laugh, you should be reading the Tom & Lorenzo blog.)

Should you be passing thru Londontown anytime soon, the V&A is definitely worth a visit. 

Hope you are having a good time, wherever you are this weekend!

Sucker for Seersucker: Pants Reveal

Happy Independence Day, to all my fellow Americans!  I'm spending the day packing for a trip to London (work) while Phin mans the grill.

I promised a reveal, and here it is:

Seersucker pants! Worn with B5051 halter top.

 
Nothing quite says summer like seersucker, does it? I really love the stuff when the temperature soars. 

I used Burda 6/2011-114, an elastic waist pull-on pants pattern that I first used for my flowered border print pants last summer. I was a little worried that in seersucker the pants would look a bit pajama-like. I'm not  on-board with the pj's as daywear trend. So, this time I returned the leg to its original width (I had flared it out for the floral version) and included the cuff that was shown in one of the Burda versions. I also experimented with a crease, which I think works pretty well.

I also made the in seam pockets this time. But next time I will not include them. I was right to think that they would add bulk at the hips.

Since my seersucker was a bit translucent, I lined in cotton batiste. I don't know about you, but I like to try out new little flourishes or techniques when I'm working on such an easy project. So, for the lining, I tried finishing with a scalloped stitch rather than hemming. It's just one of those nice inside touches that no one will see, but I know is there. 

It's about time I used some of the bajillion stitches that my machine can do!

These pants basically came together in two bursts of sewing in between work on the leather jacket. It was quick and easy.

I'm away for the next 12 days. My one free day in London is Sunday (7/8). I plan to re-visit the V&A and enjoy a quiet day. If any of you Londoners care to join me or have a better plan, please holler!

When I get back, I have several days off. We'll see if I can use them to finally finish my jacket! Stay tuned.

MIA: Blame it on the Jelly Donut

Just checking in since I've been missing in action. I was at a conference most of last week and decided not to bring my laptop at the last moment. It spared my back.

Anatomically correct jelly donut

I'm still dealing with significant sciatic pain. Turns out I've herniated a disc. What does this have to do with a jelly donut? Good question.  You see, if you think of a spinal disc like a jelly donut cushioning your vertebrae, a herniation is when the tough outer dough layer gets a crack and some jelly oozes out. And that jelly is what has my sciatic nerve on high alert. Anyway,  I'm seeing a specialist today. Fingers crossed that I can get back to normal life and activities soon. Sigh.

Anyway, I do have a pants reveal for the 4th of July planned. So, please stay tuned.

Update 7/3: Thanks for all the tea and sympathy.  Mostly good news from the specialist yesterday!  Turns out it is unlikely that I "did something" to cause this - my back is simply aging and my L4 and L5 are, apparently, stale donuts which will someday be arthritic. He's not too worried that my recovery seems slow, but I should expect significant improvement in the next 4-6 weeks. So, he prescribed steroids to bring down the inflammation and "retail therapy" for the psychological side effects. Best of all, he wants me to get back into my regular activities asap so that I don't decondition and because the activity will boost blood flow and alleviate pain (I had already noticed that the pain is less when I'm active). So, I went for a short, slow run last night with no adverse side effects or increased pain. It felt good to do something normal! 

Tailoring Leather: Back Stay and Turn of Cloth

Staying focused on my leather jacket has become challenging now that summer has arrived. But I did get two important tasks done this weekend.

First, I created a back stay.  The back stay stabilizes the shoulder area and collar, keeping it from stretching out or distorting. It also supports the garment fabric and creates a more smooth line across the shoulder blades. My leather does have some give, so I figured that it should have a back stay to support it.

I made a pattern by tracing the back of the jacket onto tracing paper.

And then cutting it out of a firm muslin, using pinking sheers for the bottom edge.

Here it is basted into the jacket back. 

The other - and more difficult - task was dealing with the lapels. I wasn't happy with how they were lying on the jacket - once I tried attaching the shoulder seams they refused to lay flat - there was too much fabric on the underside of the lapel and it wasn't curving appealingly over the jacket bodice and around the neckline. I hadn't considered that turn of cloth would play a role with leather, but it appears that it does. Thankfully I had only basted the lapels to the bodice in the seam allowance and not on the seam line. So, there should not be any visible holes in the finished jacket.

To fix  the problem, I "pinned" (with binder clips) the lapels to the jacket front pieces while I was gently rolling the seams in the direction they will ultimately go and tugging the under collar so it peeked out a bit more at the seam allowance (since the undercollar needs to be a smidge smaller than the upper collar.) Then I trimmed the under collar. It made lining up and stitching the shoulders much easier. Now I think the lapels will look good once the jacket is finished and all the seam allowances are going in the directions they need to go.

Here's the jacket, with shoulder and side seams stitched, but minus the sleeves.

Lapels, back stay... all behaving

And in case you are curious to see the insides of the jacket front with my hair canvas interfacing, well, here you go. 

There seems to be plenty of guidance when it comes to actually sewing on leather, but less when it comes to tailoring a leather jacket. Consequently, I'm moving at a snail's pace and thinking through every step of this project as I go. It's mentally tiring sewing, if you know what I mean. And I'm having a hard time staying at it for hours at a time. I seem to do better tackling one small task at a time. The worst thing for my jacket would be if impatience lead to a mistake. So I'm keeping at it, but moving slowly and taking breaks.

To keep my sewing mojo up, I've decided to work on some shorter, easier projects while I finish up the jacket - nothing that requires much thought. Anyway, stay tuned because I'll hopefully have a new finished project in the next week.

You Scream, I Scream: Wow, it's Hot

Boy was it steamy in the Northeast on the first full day of summer! 

Thanks to Dr K for sending me this ecard! So true! LOL

One of the truly great and often overlooked things about being an adult, IMHO, is having the autonomy to decide to skip dinner and go right for dessert. I've been known to have ice cream for dinner on really hot days. Last night, I even made my own.

My first batch of ice cream for this summer is Gianduja Gelato from The Perfect Scoop. Those of you who are more recent readers may not yet fully appreciate the epic nature of my love of nutella. And peanut butter, but that's a different post.

If you are not familiar with Gianduja, it hails from Torino, Italy and, flavorwise, is that same nutella-like mix of hazelnuts and chocolate. Yum. Last year I made a peach and a strawberry ice cream from this book (somehow I didn't blog about them), but this is the first time I've made a custard based ice cream (with eggs) rather than a Philadelphia style ice cream. Some people fear making custard, since there is a risk of ending up with nutella-flavored scrambled eggs (ewwwww!!!). But as long as you temper the eggs by slowly adding some of the warm custard while whisking and keep stirring the custard while it thickens, you should be fine. Just don't rush.

Gianduja Gelato

1 1/2 c hazelnuts, toasted and with skins removed
1 c whole milk
2 c heavy cream
3/4 c sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 oz milk chocolate, chopped
5 large egg yolks
1/8 tsp vanilla

Chop nuts finely in a food processor. Heat the milk, 1 cup cream, sugar and salt in a saucepan until nearly boiling.  Add nuts and let steep off the heat for 1 hour. Heat the remaining cream and pour over the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Pour the hazelnut mixture through a strainer into a saucepan squeezing the nuts to extract all the liquid. Discard nuts. Rewarm. 

Temper the egg yolks with the hazelnut mixture and then add eggs into saucepan. Stir constantly over low heat until the mixture coats the back of a spoon. Pour the mixture through a strainer and into the chocolate. Add the vanilla and cool in an ice bath.  Chill thoroughly and churn according to you ice cream maker directions.

Be patient with your egg yolks!

To up the chocolatey-ness, I also added "stracciatella" or chocolate shreds to the gelato. I generally don't like chocolate chips in my ice cream - they get all hard and cold. But by melting some semisweet chocolate (5oz) while you churn your ice cream, and then pouring it in in a long stream at the very last minute of churning, you get thin shreds of chocolate throughout. Delicious!

mmmmmmm...dinner!

The only thing I plan to do different next time is use fresher nuts (Whole Foods rather than pre-bagged supermarket nuts) so the flavor is even more intense. 

Happy Friday, everyone!

My Increasingly Off-Season Creations

As if it isn't enough that I'm sewing a jacket, now I'm knitting a sweater, too. Sheesh.

The minute I said I needed a summertime substitute hobby for knitting - who wants to deal with all that wool in the heat? - I suddenly realized that I desperately wanted to be knitting something. I'm heading to London for work and my colleague who knits invited me to their lunchtime knitting circle. So, I want to be knitting something fun, and I need a little break from socks; those purple ones took a lot out of me. 

So, I'm knitting a sweater. In my defense, I picked gorgeous mercerized cotton for it and the pattern is for a sleeveless, halter-like top. Very summery, if you can call a sweater summery. Here's the start of it.

After working on very small needles for my socks, I can't help but feel like this sweater is coming along pretty quickly, even though I had a few bumps at the beginning that had me doing almost as much un-knitting as knitting (tink tink tink). But now it's coming along nicely.

Also, in a merging of hobbies, I've started practicing my jewelry techniques by making stitch markers for my knitting. While buying needles for this sweater project, I noticed an expensive display of  cute bead stitch markers sitting on the yarn store counter. And, as I was walking back to my office, an unstoppable magnetic force pulled me off the street and into the clutches of a few of the bead shops on 6th Avenue. A few inexpensive bags and strands of beads and some jump rings later, and I've got stitch markers. Hooray.

And I've got the materials to make a whole bunch more.