Easy Apricot Almond Tart

I have been more and more into recipes that involve the word "easy." Recently my cooking has not been ambitious or creative. It has been fueled by convenience and speed. Like, how quickly can I get decent food into my mouth?
Two weeks ago I made a rhubarb tart with fresh rhubarb from my cousin's yard. I made a double batch of tart crust and saved the extra crust, figuring I would use it somehow. Two weeks went by, and I finally bought some fresh apricots at Fred Meyer, and decided to make them into a tart. I found this recipe on epicurious and went with it. (A note: part of what makes this recipe "easy" is a store-bought pie crust. My standards may be slipping, but I just can't go there yet.) I recommend making it, but with a few changes. You may have guessed this already, but a two-week old crust is very dry, and I ended up putting it into the tart pan in pieces and smushing them together. So probably use a fresh crust. Still, it tasted good. The first slice I had, while it was cooling, was way too sweet. I think the store bought apricot jam I used was really sweet. However, the next day the sweetness was reduced. Still, I would maybe reduce the sugar to 1/4 cup, or add some lemon juice to the jam to balance out the sugar. Also, I think the apricots I used weren't totally ripe, so it took longer in the oven to get them soft, thus the top is a bit browner than I'd like. I was pleased with how quickly this tart came together, since I had the crust made already. Easy gourmet, that's what it's about.

monthly review?

Perhaps I was a little ambitious with that weekly review thing.

Recent cooking highlights include the arrival of a fresh crop of California asparagus, inspiring me to cook scallops with asparagus and lemon-asparagus pasta. The scallops were good, but not great. I keep trying new seafood and hoping I'll like it. I can eat scallops but from what I've tasted so far I won't go out of my way to cook them at home. I was excited to try a real beurre-blanc sauce. It just tasted like melted butter, which is essentially what it is. I do love butter, but I was hoping for a bit more of an interesting taste. The lemon asparagus pasta was mostly my own creation. Basically, saute half a pound of asparagus (chopped into 1/2 inch pieces) and a few cloves of garlic (sliced) in olive oil until tender. Add the asparagus and garlic to 1/2 lb of cooked angel hair pasta and mix in the zest and juice of one lemon (I had an extra half lemon in the fridge, so I guess I did the juice of one and a half lemons). Mix in some pasta water to keep it loose, and top with grated Parmesan and salt and pepper. Tastes like spring.

We also hosted a going-away party last week for a few of my husband's co-workers. We prepared for 10-15 people and ended up with six people, so we've been enjoying leftover pizza, ice cream (I made homemade chocolate--yum) and fancy alcohol since. I have discovered a few mixed drinks that I like. One is called the Greyhound, and it's so simple: vodka and grapefruit juice. We bought this kind of gin and made some great gin and tonics for some friends last week. While hiking yesterday, my husband stopped me and pointed out some berries on a low bush by the trail. He crushed one and had me smell it--mmm, the smell of gin, which is made from juniper berries (well, the gin we bought is made from spruce berries, but close enough). My husband loves the forest and the outdoors so much, he drinks the taste of it.

We got a shipment today of one of the food items we miss the most from the lower 48: maple syrup. My husband's parents sent it to us. We were just about out of the jug we got from my husband's brother last year. Up here in Alaska they make birch syrup, which just isn't the same. Now I'll be looking forward to September, when my parents send me a box of freshly picked New York apples for my birthday. Otherwise I'm happy with the food here, especially the fresh salmon that will be coming in the next few months. Yum. Oh, and we're down to one handful of wild blueberries in the freezer. Unfortunately we have to make those berries last until August. Hopefully we will be picking a lot more this year!