Gorgonzola Walnut Tart

For the next dubious recipe, I went for my cousin Carole's Gorgonzola Walnut Tart. Gorgonzola is one of those things that I always always think I am going to like and never never do. I think, 'I like cheese,' and then I eat Gorgonzola and I think,' Maybe I'll rethink that.' There is a lot of thinking that goes on.

As for cousin Carole, I love her. She is sweet, fun, smart, pretty, and very, very artistic and creative. So much so, that perhaps she can be too creative for a regular recipe to handle. That is to say, sometimes you can think too far outside of the box. Like the time--renowned in my family--when she garnished something with holly. Yes, holly, the stuff that will kill you if you eat it. I'm sure it looked great, though. I can't remember because at least one member of my family was having a likely non-too-quiet aneurysm about it. We are Jews, after all.

Anyhow, Carole, if you are reading this: I love you, please forgive me for the holly story, and I tried the recipe.

There were things that were both terrific and daunting about this recipe.

• Thing one: it called for using a pie plate, so I got to break in my Pi plate (hahahaha! Math geeks! Hilarity!), which I have long loved and never used. Come to think of it, it *may* have been a gift from the very same cousin Carole. It was a gift in any event, and if it wasn't from Carole, then whoever gave it to me--I love it, and I'm sorry I can't remember which wonderful person you are. Obviously I am an asshole.
  
• Thing two: it involves using chopped nuts, which gives me the opportunity to use my nut chopper. If you have been to my house in the past three years, you know that I have a slightly profane love of weird kitchen gadgets. Garlic de-skinner? Yes. Butter warmer? Yes. Nut chopper? YES.
• Thing three: it involves making a crust from scratch. This sounds daunting. It was not.
• Thing four: it involves chopping an onion.
  

Let's stop here, and discuss how I feel about onions. We are not friends. That is to say, I love eating them (cooked - great, caramelized - even better). Chopping them, however, is a problem. I turn into the sniffling, red-eyed TV cliche, except angrier. I have tried all the folk remedies to this--running cold water, cutting only one end off, blah blah blah. None of them work. Only one thing does: wearing contacts. They are my special superhero onion shield. The thing is, I rarely wear my contacts--for various reasons, ranging from the fact that I don't see my computer very well with them to the fact that I like rocking the Tina Fey look better. Add to that the fact that I have one-day-wear contacts, so I have to throw them out after I wear them, so it's not (financially) worth it to wear them for 5 minutes of onion chopping, AND, more importantly, the fact that I am both lazy and stubborn, and you get what you got last night, which is this:

My humorless, red-eyed, 'I hate onions' face
(glasses discarded somewhere angrily in a fit of pain)

Normally, if Josh is home, I just make him cut the onions for me. He usually wears his contacts, after all. Last night, he was not home by the time I got to the onion phase of the operation, so I plunged in myself, doing a few chops, then being overwhelmed by the blinding burning in my eyes, running out into the other room where the air was less permeated with onion evilness, swearing, marginally recovering, running back into the kitchen, chopping some more, repeating.

Josh actually got home right when I was done, saw me sniffling in the kitchen, AND ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS CRYING. My life is a bad sitcom.

So, anyhow, after we got past the Two and a Half Men portion of the evening, I made the tart. It wasn't very tart. It was, however, the very definition of savory. Sadly, I wasn't in the mood for savory, so in the end, after about 2 hours of work from start to finish, I was only metz-a-metz on the whole deal. Josh, however, loved it and had three helpings. I am beginning to think Josh loves everything as long as I am the one making it. Lucky thing for him he has about 2/3s of the pie left all for himself, because the effort:enjoyment ratio on this one did not work out in favor of a repeat performance. My apologies to Carole. Perhaps it will find a home with someone else here.

Gorgonzola Walnut Tart, how you mock me

Gorgonzola Walnut Tart

1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup chopped walnuts (nut chopper!)
1 tbsp sugar
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dry mustard powder
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes (Fact that I missed this last part instructing me to cut it into cubes when reading instructions: - 2 points. Fact that I cubed it anyhow: +4 million points)

1-2 tbsp milk
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, diced (bastard)
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup cranberries, fresh or frozen (or, if you're me, dehydrated, which ultimately is not something I recommend)
1 tbsp sugar
1 1/3 c walnuts, coarsely chopped (with pleasure, madam)
1 tsp minced fresh thyme (seriously minced; I don't think I minced well enough, so the thyme got overwhelming at points)
2 lg eggs
1 c heavy cream
2-3 oz Gorgonzola cheese

Crust: Combine the flour, walnuts, sugar, salt, mustard, cayenne and butter in a food processor. Realize you put it in the mixing bowl and decide you don't care. Pulse (or rather, just keep mixing) until the mixture resembles fine bread crumbs.

Add the milk and pulse until the mixture forms a dough. Wonder how the hell only 2 tbsps of milk is going to turn that giant bowl of dry bread crumb looking stuff into a dough. Turn mixer up to high. Discover that worked ok.

Press the dough into a ball and transfer into a 9" tart pan. Laugh to self that you have never in your life ever measured one of these pie pans or whatever they are and instead always pick something you think approximates what you should have. Working from the center out, press down on the dough in all directions until it covers the bottom and sides of the pan in an even layer. Be Goddamn proud of yourself that this seems to have worked just right, and that the dough may very well be of the right consistency and everything. Freeze for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Bake for 15-20 mins. The crust will be lightly golden. Remove the crust from the oven and set aside to cool on your awesome nunchuck trivet. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees.

Filling: Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan over medium heat. Wonder if by "heavy" it means you should use your normal big saucepan (which you did), or if you should haul out the cast iron one (which you didn't). Put saucepan on the "hot" burner and hope that's okay and that Josh isn't going to have to explain to you again later when you use the hot burner and when you use the others.

Add the (bastard) onion, sprinkle with salt, and cook for 10-15 mins, stirring frequently (haha), until the onion is tender and caramelized. Think: I thought that caramelized meant you used sugar. Don't bother to find out. Add the cranberries and sugar. Cook until the cranberries pop, or in my case, until they start to burn at which point you realize that perhaps there was a reason the recipe specified 'fresh' or 'frozen' and that perhaps this wasn't the time to go rogue after all. Stir in the walnuts and thyme. Feel superior that you have pre-measured all your ingredients into tiny bowls like they do on TV. Set aside.

Whisk together eggs and cream until smooth.

Spoon the walnut-cranberry mixture into the baked tart shell. Crumble the Gorgonzola over the top. Pour in the egg mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes. The top will be golden and the custard set.

Cool for 15 minutes before serving. Serves 6-8.

Eat. Wonder if you had gotten non-dehydrated cranberries, if this whole thing would taste extremely different. Decide you are underwhelmed and go to the kitchen to forage for egg salad, apple sauce, cheetos, and Girl Scout cookies. And then wonder why you have a stomach ache.