Sunday Suppers at Lucques

We absolutely loved this cookbook! Some of the recipes were a bit more cha

llenging than others and some of the ingredients were not available even though they should have beenin season,so we had to find substitutes. All 8 recipes that we made looked and tasted amazing!

We started of with two appetizers. The "Applewood Smoked Bacon, and Herb Salad Tart" and the "Swiss Chard, with Goat Cheese, Currants and Pine Nuts Tart".

Applewood Smoked Bacon, and Herb Salad Tart

The tart was tasty and rich in texture – from the creamy crème fraiche and ricotta cheese to the salty and crispy applewood-smoked bacon.

I enjoyed making this dish, as it included several components to build the tart but was not complicted. I followed 90% of the recipe instructions in making the dish. Not knowing what ‘young onions’ are and

having no success coming across them at the market, I used regular red and yellow onions. In addition, I skipped using the food processor to blend the wet ingredients, as I found it

sufficient to mix by hand. One issue I dealt with was the cheese and crème fraiche running over the edges of the tarts while baking, but I simply trimmed the edges when

the tarts finished cooking.

Finally, instead of using the oven, I opted to use a temperature-controlled grill, since the oven was busy cooking another dish, which only added to the overall rustic nature of the tart. I think this dish allows for creativity and variation, such as adding other vegetables for different flavors. I give this dish five stars.

Swiss Chard, with Goat Cheese, Currants and Pine Nuts Tart

The biggest challenge was finding the correct ingredients.

There were two sets of ingredients that required cooking for: T

he first being the actual tart and the second being the pine nut relish. Certain things required further prodding from store workers and investigating such as "semi-aged" goat cheese (to which I settled with a "Bucheron") and "arbol chiles" which are stewed along with rosemary and finely diced red onions in olive oil to produce the base of the relish. In the end, I never found "arbo l chiles" so I ended up using a dash of korean red pepper flakes that I had at home for taste. I also added finely sliced squash, more for aesthetics. The relish is what I was most impressed with - that stuff I can eat with anything (the sweet currants and toasted pine nuts along with the sweet balsamic reduction made this a great topping). This was also the first time I've really had Swiss Chard, which had a pleasantly heartier texture and taste than spinach. The Bucheron was not too pungent or strong /sharp in taste and had a nice balanced taste along with the other ingredients on the tart. I definitely loved this dish and would make it again. A great appetizer.