Inspired by Clothilde, I decided to make tartines for dinner last night. I had been craving pesto for days and decided to go to the store and see what I could find.
I came home with a jar of sun-dried tomato pesto, herbed feta and fresh mozarella, prosciutto and two huge baguettes. I wanted Orangina to go with it, but the only place I can get that is downtown at the cafe, so I bought cheap Mimosa flavoured champagne. Close enough.
When I was in the middle of slicing bread and rubbing it with garlic (hey, tartine, bruschetta, it’s all the same to me) J. walked in with our friend H. – the one with the spiffy house. They asked if I wanted to go to dinner, and I declined. I figured they wouldn’t want what I was eating, so I encouraged them to head out without me, but J. never eats and had new tools to play with, so H. sat on the couch with a forlorn look on his face. He hadn’t eaten all day.
I layered the garlic-rubbed baguettes with pesto and prosciutto. On half of them I omitted the pesto and just buttered over the garlic. I figured H. would prefer something simpler, and I had fond memories of eating baguette sandwiches with butter, ham and gruyere in Paris, so I knew it would be tasty.
I alternated with feta or mozarella, so at the end I had about ten little tartines of various combinations of ingredients. Popped them in the oven @ 350 for five minutes, and piled them on a plate with steins of $4 orange-flavoured sparkling wine. It was an immense hit – the rubbed garlic brought out extra flavour in the butter-based tartines, and even the strongly herbed feta did not clash with the tomato pesto. I ate about two too many, and fell asleep early in a garlic coma.
The best compliment was H. trying feta for the first time – he’s a notoriously picky eater, and I was terribly pleased with how enthusiastic he was with the little fancy sandwiches, as J. called them. Of course, they had been landscaping all day without food, so you know, hunger is the best sauce.