tomato and red pepper tart

Once again, Deborah Madison saved the day when the CSA assortment of vegetables came in yesterday! The share this week was lettuce, fennel, (lemon) basil, eggplant, a yellow bell pepper, and roma tomatoes. With the help of a friend who came over to help eat the haul, I made use of all but the lettuce and eggplant, supplementing with a few other vegetables, in a fantastic (and rather photogenic) tomato and red pepper tart. It's an interesting dish, halfway a tomato pie, halfway a vegan deepdish cheese-less pizza, and exceedingly tasty. I made two small changes to D.M.'s recipe, adding a little whole wheat flour to the crust, and replacing the anise seed with fresh fennel. The resulting recipe was delicious, despite being a bit complicated and a bit lengthy. The tomatoes were ripe and flavorful, the peppers roasted up perfectly, the fennel and saffron added a bit of complexity, while the olives added a bit of bite. The crust was a simple single-rise yeast dough with some olive oil for flavor, and it managed to be light and crispy. A great find.