Tartines

I'm so far behind in posts. Things have been crazy, sigh...

Anyhoo, these tartines are something I discovered while at my parents place over Christmas, while catching up on cable TV. I was watching Barefoot Contessa and she had gone to a Parisian bakery where they baked these huge, round loaves of bread which they then used to make open-faced sandwiches called tartines.



The set-up is fairly easy and you can get pretty creative with ingredients. Take a couple of slices of toasted bread and pile up a bunch of ingredients; cut into smaller pieces if you wish or leave whole (I like cutting them up into crostini-sized pieces). For instance, here's one with some avocado, capers, red onion, smoked salmon and plenty of lemon.


I tried a warm version, spreading roasted tomato dressing on the bread and topping with some gruyere and slow-roasted tomatoes, then popping into the toaster oven until the cheese melted.


This is pesto with slow-roasted tomatoes.


Here is some goat cheese spread on toasted bread, topped with roasted tomato dressing.

It's a great way to use up random ingredients you might have laying around (or, if like me, you had made a batch of slow-roasted tomatoes and dressing). They're great for lunch or a late afternoon snack or even a starter before dinner. I think it's important to have some decent bread, and that the bread be toasted. But other than that, the possibilities are endless!