Festive fruit tart

Photograph by Lori Korleski Richardson




This fresh fruit tart, with a shortbread base and a key-lime spread, looks pretty any time of the year, but with its blueberries, strawberries and raspberries, it's especially festive and appropriate for Independence Day. Enjoy!

The crust:

Ingredients
1 1/3 cup flour

1/3 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup butter, softened

Instructions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease and flour a  12-inch tart pan.
Mix flour and brown sugar. Cut in butter until crumbly. Pour crumb mixture into pan. Press firmly and evenly against bottom and side of pan. Bake 10-15 minutes or until light brown.
Cool completely before proceeding.

The filling:

Ingredients
1 can nonfat sweetened condensed milk
8 ounces lowfat cream cheese, softened
1 cup key-lime juice

Instructions
Blend thoroughly the milk and cheese, then add the lime juice slowly until well blended. Spread to about an inch from the edge of the shortbread crust. It may look a little runny, but it will firm up as it chills. You may have an extra custard cup of the filling left over. Chill while preparing the fruit in the next step.

Putting it all together:

Ingredients
1 pint blueberries
1 pint red sweet cherries
4 very ripe strawberries
1 pint raspberries
(You will probably have fruit left over)
1 can of whipped cream

Instructions
Wash all the fruit. Stem and cut the cherries in half, removing the pits. Cut a cone around the top of the strawberries and remove the green tops. Slice the strawberries vertically almost to the tip, then fan them out and place tip to tip in the middle. Surround the strawberries with a circle of blueberries. Surround the blueberries with a circle of cherry halves, cut side down. Surround the cherries with another circle of blueberries. At the very edge of the shortbread, spray whip cream into rosettes and top each rosette with a raspberry, stem end down.

Serves 12

Cooking-for-a-crowd tips

Staying at the Browns always reminds me of cooking breakfast for at least a dozen people, and if you’ve ever worn yourself to a frazzle trying to cook for more than eight people in the morning, here are some tips to get you through your next big event.

• Toast: Forget the toaster and those fancy racks that we like to refer to as the “toast cooler.” Turn on the oven to 350 degrees. Put slices of real bread (the kind that doesn’t have a lot of preservatives; if you’re using Wonder Bread, you’ll probably need a rack, too) on cookie sheets. When the oven is preheated, slide the sheets into the oven and cook until the tops are light brown or you can smell the toast. Remove and flip the slices. Toast for a little less time than the first side, turn off the oven, remove the toast, put on a pat of butter, and slide back into the oven until the pats melt a little. Serve immediately.
  
• Eggs: Scrambled are great for a crowd, but you always have to use so many eggs per person to make them look like a goodly amount on a plate. Poached look fancier, and my friend Elaine Corn has the easiest way to make them ahead in her cookbook, “365 Ways to Cook Eggs.” But the best way to make eggs for a crowd is to make a strata (kind of a savory bread pudding that, without crusts, looks more like a souffle; click on the word for a recipe) and top with great sauce (my favorite is marchand de vin).
• Bacon: Oven-fried is the only way to go. Line a lipped baking sheet with foil, or make half-inch sides with the foil. Does not need to be quick-release. This will make cleanup easier. Separate bacon slices and put them in a single layer on the foil. Put in a cold oven (DO NOT PREHEAT), then turn it on to 400 degrees. Check the oven 15 minutes later. As soon as the bacon is golden brown, remove it (it will continue to cook as you take it out of the oven). The exact time will depend on the thickness of the bacon slices, but it shouldn't be more than 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and drain on paper towels. Strain the hot grease through cheesecloth if you are saving it for another use, otherwise let it solidify and toss it and the foil together.

Of course, the easiest and healthiest of all is fruit and cereal, but somehow, that just doesn't say "company" to most people.

Fruit pigs out

Pork and fruit are a natural pairing, and I've enjoyed many such pairings: ham and pineapple, pork roast with prunes, pork loin stuffed with apricots and my grandmother's favorite, pork chops and applesauce. But until I was looking for a way to use up some grapes that had gotten shoved to the back of the fruit bin, I had never thought of using fresh grapes with pork. I simmered them whole, since the recipe didn't specify that anything needed to be done with them, but for company, I think I would halve the grapes. The original recipe is from a book called "Fruit" (I was actually looking for a dessert that would use the grapes), but I cut out the step of serving the tenderloin on toasted brioche.

Pork tenderloin with grapes

Serves 4

1 pork tenderloin, about 1 pound

Salt and pepper to taste

2 tablespoons butter

1/4 cup dry white wine

3/4 cup chicken stock

2 cups grapes, cut in half

Cut the tenderloin in 1/2-inch slices and season with salt and pepper. Lightly flatten each medallion with a mallet. Melt the butter in a heavy skillet over medium high heat and cook the medallions for 3 minutes each side. Turn the heat to medium, remove the medallions to a heat-proof platter and  keep warm.

Deglaze the skillet with the wine and stock, then add the grapes and cook until they soften, 3-5 minutes. Pour the fruit and sauce over the meat and serve.

A little dessert, big taste, few calories

Last night, I wanted something light after feasting (a bit of lamb and artichokes, with a cup of butternut squash soup to start), and I had just picked up a package of phyllo tart cups. Here's what I came up with, after warming up the cups in the post-lamb oven: I mixed 2 tablespoones of all-fruit (no sugar) peach jam with 1 tablespoon of non-fat yogurt. I filled the warm tart cups with that mixture and topped each with a fresh raspberry. Delicious! We had three each. Per tart: 28 calories.

photo by Lori K