Ridiculously easy summer veggie tart

Too much summer squash arriving in your CSA box or growing in your garden? After trying out this recipe, you just might stop trying to foist your excess zucchini on neighbors... and start impressing them with your baking skills. I've made this twice in the past week! Here is the recipe, modified from the one on Food52.com.

Summer Squash Tart

INGREDIENTS

Whole Wheat Pastry Crust

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 stick (8 TBSP) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
• 3 TBSP ice cold water - I actually measured 3 TBSP cold tap water, then added an ice cube and put the cup in the freezer as I was gathering the remaining ingredients

Tart Filling

• 5 ounces fresh ricotta cheese (about a third of a pint sized container)
• Freshly grated zest of 1 lemon
• Juice from 1/2 lemon (1-2 TBSP)
• a mix of small summer squashes, sliced into thin coins (about 1-1.5 cups worth)
• a few sprigs of fresh thyme
• Drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil (2 teaspoons)
• Pinch of smoked paprika
• A dusting of freshly grated Parmesan cheese

RIDICULOUSLY EASY DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 425F.

Add the flour, salt, baking powder and sugar to a deep bowl and mix well with your hand to combine. 

Scatter the pre-chopped, cold butter pieces over the dry ingredients and rub together quickly with your fingertips, until it forms a sandy-looking texture with some pebble-sized pieces. 

Sprinkle the cold water over the mixture and mix gently with a fork or your fingers until the dough comes together. Mine never really formed a "ball," but I did make sure there were no big globs of butter and no pockets of dry flour. The important thing is to work quickly so the dough doesn't get too warm and mushy.

Plop chunks of dough into a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom, and press them around to form a crust. No rolling pin needed! It doesn't need to look perfect, just a somewhat uniform thickness that goes up the edges of the tart pan.

Now let's get started on your filling... Stir the ricotta and lemon zest together in your bowl. Go on, use the same one from the dough, there's no need to create extra dishes here! Spread the mixture into a thin layer on top of the dough. It's starting to look pretty good, right? Oh, just wait....

Next, toss the squash slices in the bowl -- yes, that same bowl! -- with the lemon juice and olive oil. Place them in a pretty pattern single layer on top of the ricotta, overlapping the edges a bit.

Pick the leaves off the stems of your thyme (imagine the motion of a firefighter sliding down a pole - ha!) and sprinkle the leaves over the squash, along with the paprika, and finally the Parmesan. 

Bake your tart for 20 minutes, then cool to room temperature, slice, and enjoy. Sorry there are no photos of the finished tart, we ate it too quickly... both times!

This dish will keep in the fridge for a few days... in the unlikely event of leftovers. I think you could swap in lots of other tasty summer veggies, too: eggplants or tomatoes would make for lovely variations, just mind the extra liquid these more moist veggies give off when they cook.