Tortes are for Vegetables Too

Who doesn’t love a torte? Now, thinking on tortes, I’ve never seen or eaten one that wasn’t sweet. But, the other night I started thinking about some of the extra veggies I had on hand and what to do with them. I needed a fresh and new way to get them onto the table.

Turns out, there’s lots of vegetable recipes on line (duh!). I came across this recipe from Buona Pappa that you can see a great video for here: http://www.buonapappa.net/zucchini-and-carrots-roses-tart/

It’s a beautifully crafted rose torte where the veggies are peeled and the peels are turned into beautiful roses. That’s some great food art!

After thinking on the idea of making a torte with (gasp!) VEGETABLES and NOT CHOCOLATE I decided to try something similar.

Here’s what happened:

Turn the oven to 350 deg F.

Get a puff pastry and unroll it over a flat surface. Then place it into your torte pan. (I didn’t have a pan solely for tortes but I had a spring form pan for cheesecake and this worked well)

 

 

 

I put some wax paper on the pastry and weighed it down with some dried beans (or you could use pie weights if you have them).  I then put the torte crust in the oven for about 20 minutes (make sure it’s golden brown when you take it out of the oven)

 

 

 

 

 

 

While the crust was baking I made the filling and diced the veggies.

For the filling:

I cracked 2 eggs into a glass bowl (seriously you could use any bowl, I just like the glass ones) and poured in the small curd cottage cheese and Parmesan cheese, garlic, nutmeg, salt, chunked mozzarella and Italian seasoning and stirred

 

 

 

 

 

For the veggies:

I cut them into chunks like mini towers. I used egg plant, green and yellow zucchini, and carrots.

(Keep in mind you could also do slices for thinner chunks of veggies, or if your really brave, you could do the awesome roses like on Buona Pappa’s site)

 

 

 

 

After the crust was cooled, I poured the filling into the cooled torte crust until it was thick enough to hold the veggies upright (about ½ inch thick).  Then I placed the veggies all around to make a colorful veggie wonderland

 

I put it in the oven at 350 deg F for another 50 to 55 minutes.

When the torte was done I sprinkled some leftover cheese to melt on the top (I grated some mozzarella and Parmesan and mixed it).

Forgive me for not having a after cut picture but it was so yummy that it was gone before I realized I’d forgotten!

Note: If you have leftover filling like I did make sure to use it as there’s raw eggs in it (DON’T eat it out of the spoon even though it smells good!). It goes wonderful baked into macaroni and cheese!! (Seriously I have a mac and cheese fetish that is out of control, I think we know what my next recipe is probably going to be…that is if I don’t come across a good chocolate one!)

Have a great day everyone!

Recipe Below:

Ingredients:

• 2 Eggs
• 1 puff pastry crust
• 16 ozSmall curd cottage cheese
• 1 tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsp garlic
• salt to taste
• 1 ½ cup chunked mozzarella (plus half cup grated)
• 8 oz shredded parmesan cheese
• 1 tbsp Italian Herb seasoning
• Vegetables for torte (I used zucchini, eggplant, and carrots)

 

Directions:

1. Heat oven to 350 deg. F.
2. Unroll pastry crust onto flat surface and place into torte pan
3. Weigh down the crust with pie weights over wax paper and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown
4. Mix eggs, cottage cheese, nutmeg, garlic, salt, mozzarella, parmesan cheese and herb seasoning
5. Cut vegetables
6. After pastry is done and cooled, pour cheese mixture into the pastry crust
7. Place vegetables in cheese mixture
8. Bake in already heated oven for 50 to 55 minutes
9. Enjoy!