Fruit Tarts and Gardens

We had a wonderful three-day weekend. Of course, it never seems long enough, but ours was just the right balance of relaxation and projects we'd been putting off. We got a lot accomplished, and I'm starting the really see the benefits of getting up a bit earlier in order to enjoy more of your day.

One of the fun projects I was able to do over the weekend was to make Martha Stewart's fruit tarts from her May issue. I've been trying more and more of her recipes, and I never seem to get them just right. Last month I attempted to make her rhubarb cake, which turned into rhubarb cobbler. This month, I wanted to make one of her tarts because it looked so good in the picture, and I love tarts. I even had little ones served at my wedding reception. So I got all the ingredients, complete with two little tart dishes from Ikea, and began to follow the recipe. It's pretty time consuming, with a lot of hurry up and wait preparation. Much to my chagrin, even though I followed directions explicitly, the crust did not turn out like it was supposed to. But it tasted delicious so instead of popping them out of the little pans, I just kept them in there.

The final product actually turned out pretty fantastic. The filling was amazing, and I think they turned out very similar to the picture from the magazine. So I'm going to call this one a success, even though the crust didn't turn out perfectly. Either way it was fun to make. I've always felt that baking is more enjoyable than cooking. Brenton feels the opposite, so we make a great match in that respect. Here are some photos of the finished product, one with the article's picture of what it should look like. It's the top right one in the article.

Another one of our projects that we finally accomplished was the planting of our garden. I am so excited about it. From talking to friends in the area, tomatoes do very well in Utah soil, so we planted some of those, along with some herbs and zucchini. I love the summer, and I'm really thrilled to watch it all grow and eat the delicious vegetables over the next few months. I've always wanted to plant a garden, and our landlord already rototilled a piece of the yard for us. It'll be interesting to see if we'll have challenges with bunnies or gophers, because I'm not at home during the day to keep an eye on it. We also share the yard with our neighbors who have three children that seem to think everything we own is theirs too. So that will also be interesting. Those factors aside, we're really hoping this will be a fruitful venture for the summer.