It's Sunday In My Heart and In My Stomach

Happy Monday, LilyOnTheLam.Com Readers:

I swear weekends go by in the blink of an eye.  One second it is Friday afternoon and next second it is Monday morning.  Although I had a very fun weekend, I would have liked it to last LONGER!

I have a giant file of recipes I have seen online that I would like to try one day.  The file is so big I could probably make a new recipe every day for several years.  My cooking intentions are always broader than my cooking reality.  

However today, a recipe that I had printed out months ago popped up on a Facebook feed.  A breakfast tart with baked eggs, bacon and cheese on a grain-free almond crust from Danielle Walker's Against All Grain website.  (The website calls it "Breakfast Pizza with Gruyere, Baked Eggs and Bacon" but I figure anything where I use my tart pan is a tart not a pizza.  LOL!)  

I looked at the ingredient list and I was surprised that I had almost everything on the list.  This NEVER happens.  A typical day in my life is "Ooooh I could make a BLT sandwich - except I don't have bacon, lettuce, tomato, mayonnaise or bread."  

But today was not a typical day - I even had FRESH CHIVES in my refrigerator.  It is rare I have fresh anything in my fridge as I eat out a ridiculous amount.  I decided this was the universe's way of saying that even though it was Monday, I should brunch like it's still Sunday.

The recipe for the breakfast tart (a.k.a. Pizza) is here, but I wanted to discuss some modifications that I made.  The grain free crust uses blanched almond flour, salt, egg, melted butter, cold water and chopped chives.  I had almond flour but it was not blanched - so my crust was more mottled in color.  It tastes great to me either way.  I also used smoked salt, but less than the recipe called for.  Instead of melted regular butter, I used melted grass-fed garlic and herb Kerrygold butter to add additional flavor.  I also tripled the chopped chives.  I find almond flour crusts to be a little bland so adding extra herbs really brought a lot of great flavor to the crust.

The almond crust before baking 

For the tart filling, it called for 1/4 c. creme fraiche or Greek yogurt.  I used 1/3 cup - 1/2 sour cream and 1/2 Greek yogurt to add a more savory tang.  If I were living in France, I might have creme fraiche in my fridge on a regular basis.  However here in Tampa, most of my local stores do not carry it.  

I also did not have 1/4 c. shredded Gruyere cheese.  Had I had Gruyere cheese, I would have also added some nutmeg to the filling as I find that is a great Swiss flavor combination.  However, I didn't have any Gruyere cheese (did you really think I would?)  

Instead I used 1/3 c. rough chopped Kerrygold Dubliner Cheddar cheese and added both cracked black pepper, cayenne pepper, 3 garlic cloves minced and 1/4 of a small red onion, diced.  I loved the crunch of the red onion in this breakfast tart.  I like really savory flavor profiles.

The cheese filling before baking

The recipe called for 7 strips of cooked bacon to be put on top of the cheese layer.  However my tart pan could only handle 6 slices.  What a crime!

And the result?  A fabulous breakfast tart that looks impressive.  It was incredibly easy to make but looks like it was difficult.  I love recipes like that!  I will definitely make this recipe again, but next time I will rough chop the bacon instead of just laying the strips on the tart.  It was harder to cut into wedges because of it.  Also the tart is supposed to serve 6 but only 4 eggs are used.  If I was making this for a brunch, I'd crack in 2 more eggs so every serving would have a full egg on it.

I made sure to cook the tart for a few extra minutes because while I love a runny yolk, I don't like a runny egg white.  But otherwise this was SO DELICIOUS!  And grain free!  I definitely recommend checking out this recipe from Danielle Walker.  Any day can be like a Sunday brunch with this delightful dish!