The Incredible Shrinking Tart

Lately i have had all sorts of baking disasters...this is my latest...

I am fairly decent at making a butter pastry...pate brisee...its one of my favorite things to make as it makes me think of my childhood...there is nothing better than the baked off scraps of mom's pie crust.
A couple of weeks ago i made lemon curd and pate brisee...well i over processed it...my husband actually laughed when he tried to take a bite of it...it was hard and chewy at the same time...the lemon curd never set up...i am thinking i undercooked it...

So this time i made a grapefruit curd...overcooked it...im thinking this is why the flavor was so mild and it was grainy...yum...the flavor was okay but grainy is never good...also i gave a whirl at a different butter pastry from my gourmet cookbook...the crust tasted delicious but it shrunk like a mother you know what...never had that happen like that before...so next time im going to try a different pastry that Lily from bigBANG left a link for...By the way it might not be as bad as i am making it out to be because my husband ate the whole thing.

If You Are Going To Come By

May i suggest you do it in the spring and summer...

The wind blows less and there are so many beautiful things in the garden...

Like itty bitty lavender flowers for your roasted potatoes...and lots of rosemary and thyme for your meat...there may also be rose petals for your glass of water and scented geraniums on your tart...

Treasury

This is Natasha...she is from Transylvania...my cahiers were featured in a treasury along with her...i think she is kinda sexy in a sweet way...if you have an etsy account swing by and make a comment!

Tomatoes

Roasted for dinner last week...

If you come here enough...you will see this type of salad often... i think this is the 3rd photo of a tomato cucumber salad published here...what can i say we like salad...

A package of little jewels...

Yep...definitely jewel like and tasty!

My own little tomato starts...one year we had 17 tomato plants...I had the worst heartburn by the end of summer...but i couldnt stop eating them.

This Morning

There was a bloom on the Queen Elizabeth rose bush i thought was dead...

Also there were early morning cuties...

Two Spanish cousins who couldn't decide which one was prettier...

And finally a delicious ruby red grapefruit from the garden...i am going to try to make a curd with the others because as my daughter says,"this one disappeared in my mouth."

Eau de Sophie

She is turning three next month...i can hardly believe it...

So I made an illustration/collage in honor of that for her... now i need to scan and print for the invitations for the upcoming event...

A green bottle because she LOVES green most days...

Lots of flowers because her birthday dress is full of them...and well i love flowers.

Dinner

You know when you are tired because you have 80 million things to do that you can't do any of them?

And then the evening comes and there are children crying and a husband on the way home... you want cook a lovely dinner but really do you?

Roasted veggies and lazy scrambled eggs with toast do the trick...everyone is satisfied...especially mom because its takes 10 minutes to prep the veggies...and 30 minutes later you toast the toast and scramble the eggs...daddy can take care of the dishes!

And now I wish I had some right now!