Tomato and Zucchini Tartlets

Check out Chef Ashley Simone's appearance on WCIU's "You and Me This Morning" making these tasty vegan treats.

Tomato and Zucchini Tartlets are perfect this time of year and especially for your Labor Day BBQ. There's still lots of great fresh tomatoes and zucchinis at farmer's markets, or maybe in your own garden. This recipes has several parts. It's a great appetizer and one that's fun to make. In fact, if you have kids, get them to help make these.

Tomato and Zucchini Tartlets

 Recipes

HUMMUS

15 oz can of garbanzo beans, drained, reserve water

¼ cup olive oil

¼ cup lemon juice (juice of one lemon)

2 TB tahini

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

½ ts ground coriander

½ ts cumin

1/8 ts cayenne

¼ ts ground white pepper

¼ ts salt

Drain one can of garbanzo, reserving the liquid in another bowl. Using a food processor or a blender, blend garbanzo beans, olive oil, lemon juice, tahini, garlic, and some of the reserved liquid from the garbanzo beans (possibly ¼ cup).

Put in blender. Stop regularly and push down the mixture in the sides. Add liquid as needed. Once it’s running smoothly, add in spices. Add salt and pepper as needed.  Set aside.

GRILLED VEGETABLES

1 roma tomato

1 zucchini

1 TB olive oil

salt and pepper

¼ ts French thyme

Slice both tomato and zucchini into rounds 1/8 inch thick. Put in a bowl and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper, and thyme.

Grill the vegetables either on an outdoor grill or on a searing hot grill pan. Make sure that the grill/grill pan is clean and well oiled before putting on the vegetables. Grill the vegetables until you get dark grill marks on either side a minute or two.  This is just to get the nice grill marks.

Take off the grill and set aide to cool.

The assembly

2 sheets of puff pastry

olive oil

hummus

grilled roma tomato

grilled  zucchini

½ cup finely chopped (chiffonade) fresh basil

           

Take out the puff pastry and allow to thaw. About an hour. Make sure you don’t leave out too long or it will be hard to work with.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Flour your surface. Take out puff pastry and unfold it. Flour a rolling pin and smooth it out, evening it out. Use cookie cutters. Flour them and cut out rounds (shapes) and put onto a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silpats. If using parchment paper, use a little cooking spray. Place on sheet with room in between.

Poke holes in the pastry with a fork (to ensure it doesn’t rise too much. This is called docking the dough.) Brush with olive oil.

Take hummus and spread over rounds up to 1/8 inch from edge, medium layer maybe 1/8 inch deep (or more if you’d like). Then place one piece of the grilled tomato or zucchini on each of the rounds.

Bake in oven for 18-20 minutes.

Serve tartlets hot or room temperature with the chiffonade of fresh basil on top.

And, you can watch a segment from WCIU and see how to make these.