Carmelized Onion Tart

I don't really understand it when people say that they hate to cook for just themselves. I love it. I feel none of the responsibility of feeding and pleasing other people when I cook just for me. I can eat crappy food if I really want to OR I can get really creative OR I can make something that takes a bit longer to make but which makes me happy without thinking about other people getting hungry, while I'm taking my sweet-a$$ time making dinner. Tonight's dinner falls into all of those categories above, Tim's away, so in the kitchen I was, getting to play. And I decided I wanted to make a tart, unfortunately (or is it fortunately, because it ended up being delicious!!) I didn't have much to put in the tart.

Sooo, I caramelized some onions, managed to make the most out of the rest of my rind of parmesan and chopped up a few kalamatas from the oversized Costco jar (best Costco purchase ever - we go through those things like water) and wrapped it all up in a delicious extra-buttery free form tart crust (which I added spelt flour to, out of guilt for the amount of butter I used).

This is kind of like an even worse version of Pissaladiere, one of my favourite pizzas, but with more crust (and a way more buttery version at that) and I held off on the anchovies - thinking that the kalamatas were salty enough. Although in retrospect, seeing as Tim was away, I perhaps should have taken the opportunity to get my anchovy fix in. Feel free to add a few, anchovies only make things better, I swear!


Caramelized Onions:
3-4 large onions, sliced thinly
salt and pepper,
olive oil and butter
thyme
1 tbsp. good quality balsamic vinegar

Heat olive oil and butter (however much you want, I did about a tbsp of each) in a frying pan and add your onions. Season this with salt and pepper. Set to medium-low, cover and leave it for a good 15-20 mins. stirring occasionally. You want the onions to soften. Once this accomplished, uncover it, add about a tsp of thyme if using dry or a tbsp if using fresh stuff, and turn up the heat to medium. You'll want to stir it occasionally to end up with a lovely golden brown mess of delicious caramelized yumminess. This will probably take another good 15 mins. Right at the end, add your balsamic vinegar - the more stars your vinegar has the better for this part - you want to enhance the sweetness, not make it acidic. Meanwhile, you can work on your tart crust.

Savoury Spelt Tart Crust:

3/4 c. white flour
1/2 c. spelt flour (you can sub in any other whole grain flour, but spelt is delicious)
1/2 tsp. salt
10 tbsp. or a 11/4 sticks of unsalted butter, frozen or refrigerated and cut into small chunks
1 egg yolk
2-3 tbsp. cold water

Place flours and salt in a food processor and process until combined. Add all of the butter at once and buzz away, until the butter has been distributed evenly in the flour. (My food processor is a little intense, so it ends up being like large bits of sand, rather than the more common consistency of peas.) Add the egg yolk and blend. Dump it all into a bowl and work the water into it, until it just sticks together. You might need to add a bit more. Form a disc of the dough and wrap that in plastic wrap and stick it in the fridge for a minimum of 10 minutes.

To assemble:

Caramelized Onions
Tart Crust
1/3 cup chopped kalamatas
Parmesan or other delicious cheese to taste

Preheat your oven to 450F. Roll out your dough to about a quarter inch consistency, in a roughly circular shape. Grate some cheese into the centre of the dough, leaving yourself enough room to fold the pastry over onto itself. Pile your onions and kalamatas onto that and then fold over your pastry. It doesn't matter what it looks like, it can be roughly circular (or polygonal in my case) what matters is that all is contained because it will taste great in any shape you end up with - I kind of like that it ends up looking like a windmill. You can grate a little extra cheese over the top of this.  Stick it in the oven on a cookie sheet or a piece of parchment on a pizza stone like I did and cook for up to 30 minutes or more. Keep an eye on it when its all toasty brown its done.

And then enjoy with a salad or with a delightful saute of cauliflower and kale, like I did. Magnifico!