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Torta Rustica Pinkita

(post, Su T Fitterman)

This past Monday I got ambitious and decided to attempt Provençal Zucchini and Swiss Chard Tart with  Whole Wheat Yeasted Olive Oil Pastry, published last week in the NYT by Martha Rose Shulman. Out in the garden I found onions, garlic, beet stems and leaves (chard replacement), rosemary and thyme. But no ripe zucchini, so that was a Young Brothers buy. [Note to self: even beet leaves that look green have red veins and bleed. And yes, this does mean that the onions sautéed with beet stems will turn pink.] While we didn't have gruyère, we had something similar (well, it was white and smelled strong). My housekeeper kindly mixed together the ingredients for the pastry, but before I had time to roll it, she fell, gashed her head against a corner of the open dishwasher and we ended up in the ER for three hours. She's going to be OK, but the dough rose way longer than advised. No matter. I rolled it out anyway and fit it into our huge cast-iron pan that I can barely lift. Then I quickly beat the eggs, added the cheese and sautéed vegetables, dumped the mixture on the pastry, turned over the edges in as rustic a way as possible and sent to the oven for about an hour. It was delish and you know what? It tasted even better the next day, cold. So there you go. A one-dish summer dinner. On the pink side.