Diced! – Mikaela – Roasted Carrot and Parsnip Tart with Goat Cheese and Proscuitto

Today we have an entrant for the first course of the Diced! competition. Contestants were instructed to create or find a recipe for an appetizer, soup or salad containing the following ingredients: Peach Preserves (or jam or jelly), Pita Bread, Regular carrots (baby ones would be acceptable) and Prosciutto. They were instructed to make their dish and create a blog post about it, including pictures. You can help determine who advances to the next round. On Friday, after the last post, I will post a poll where you can vote for up to four of the contestants to move on. Vote for the post you like the best. You can vote because of the inventiveness, the yummyness, the use of ingredients, the quality of the writing and pictures or for any other reason. The poll will be active for one week only. Check back and vote. In the event of a tie, the Ranting Chef will choose who advances. More information about Diced! can be found here.

Today’s contestant, Mikaela treats cooking as her art and brings both a background of ethnic cuisine and healthy eating to the table. She blogs over at Mama Mouse Says. Take a look at her blog and at the post below…

I was so excited to hear I would be a part of this competition! On top of my love of cooking and good healthy food I am also pretty competitive and it has been a long time since I have had a chance to compete.  I was checking my email daily to see if I got in and when then email came with the ingredients I could hardly wait to get to the grocery store.

I knew almost immediately what I was going to make when I saw the ingredients in my email . I gathered my ingredients from my local grocery store and with the baby strapped to me in the ergo I got right to work. I decided to make a rustic tart with carrot and parsnip and I knew the prosciutto would add a nice smokey flavor. This tart turned out even more beautiful than I envisioned and it was so fun to make.

Competition ingredients I purchased:

• Organic carrots
• All natural whole wheat pita bread
• Utah made all natural peach preserves from Probst farm
• Prosciutto from the Harmons deli

Other ingredients I used:

• Goat cheese
• parsnip
• shallots
• rosemary
• thyme
• corn flour

How I made it:

• First I brushed the carrots and parsnip with the peach preserves and a bit of oil and roasted them in the oven until a bit tender
• Next I put the pita bread in a  food processor until it resembled corn meal  and I mixed it with a bit of smart balance  and corn flour to  create the tart dough.
• I kneaded it a bit and rolled it out into a rectangle and baked it for just a few minutes to firm it up
• Next I brushed the crust with more peach preserves
• I assembled the carrots and parsnips on the crust and topped with hunks of goat cheese, shallots, prosciutto,  rosemary and thyme
• I put the tart under the broiler until the cheese browned a bit
• voila!

Although this tart was not a lot of work It was so delicious to eat. The sweetness of the peach preserves with the  rustic  and savory flavors of the herbs, prosciutto and roots worked so marvelously together and the goat cheese added a nice creaminess.  I am putting this one in my recipe index for later but  I will probably  wont be crumbling up pita bread next time.

Round 2? bring it on!

Remember – check back after the last post to vote on who advances in the Diced! competition.