Spinach and Ricotta Tart

Over the Memorial Day weekend, our friend Anna from Minnesota came for a visit -- she's another friend from Spoke Folk, a music and bicycling ministry. Before coming, she had "demanded" to be guinea-pigged while she was here, and we chose to test a spinach and ricotta tart from a recent issue of Cottage Living magazine.

This was my first time using puff pastry, and I was not as pleased with its "puffiness" as I had expected. I know that too much handling can have this effect, but I'm quite sure this wasn't the problem -- perhaps I was overly gentle with it. But, the sides did not puff up as much as was necessary, some of the tart filling leaked out while it was baking, and the bottom crust was not cripsy. Maybe this is "the nature of the beast" since I did put very moist filling on top of it, but I also wonder if it would stay crisper if the oven were hotter than the recommended 350 degrees (which, to me, seemed too low to make pastry puff appropriately.)

The end product was fine...we all thought it needed some more "oomph" and felt that some sauteed onions would be a welcomed addition, as would some additional pepper and/or another herb. I also would consider making this in pie-dough-type pastry instead of the puff pastry, and seeing if that gave me a more desired crust on the bottom of the tart.

We had the leftovers for dinner last night (with a soon-to-be-blogged-about arugula salad), and it was much better -- perhaps because it aged gracefully, but more likely because we reheated it on a pizza stone, which we probably should have used the first time.

recipe: link