Saturday, February 18, 2006

Blog URL has Changed

Please note I have changed the URL of Geek Cusine from kithchentj.blogspot.com to geekcuisine.blogspot.com.

Monday, February 13, 2006

Lazy Dude's Tartlet

Since I'm supposed to be eating healthy, I often work up easy desserts around fruit. A ripe juicy Anjou pear is often sweet enough to satisy a dessert craving, but not complex enough in flavor or rich enough in texture to feel like a dessert. So I have spent many early evenings spreading sweet and creamy condiments over my fruit looking for some dessert-like result. In the end, I came up with the Lazy Dude's Tartlet.

My pear tartlet has a crust made from chopped walnuts and a sweet glaze like topping derived from Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter. If this is not rich enough for you, mix in some low fat cream cheese with the pumpkin butter. Serve it cold or pop it in the toaster oven to give it some warm goodness.

Recipe:

1 ripe pear (your choice)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
2 tbsp Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter
1 tbsp cream cheese (optional)

Slice pear into thin slices (1/4 to 1/8 of inch) and place on plate. Put chopped walnuts in a wide shallow bowl, spread them evenly over the bowl. Take each pear slice and push it into the bowl so that you get a nice thick layer of chopped walnuts studding the bottom of the slice. Remove slice from bowl and return to plate. Repeat this remaining slices. Now, spread pumpkin butter (with or without cream cheese mixed in) over each slice. At this point, you could pop your plate (oven-save or use a cookie sheet instead of plate) into a 350 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. Otherwise, just enjoy as is...