After a couple of weeks of freezing cold and snow, we awoke this beautiful Sunday morning to sunshine and slightly warmer temperatures. We spent a lazy morning in bed drinking tea and reading the papers online. At one point, James discovered a recipe for a quick cheese and onion tart in The Washington Post and was eager to try a vegan version of it.

Now, our version is not WFPB (whole-food, plant-based) because of the puff pastry, which contains white flour and oil, but it IS vegan….and it IS Sunday, so what the hell!

Here’s our version!

Vegan Cheez and Shallot Tart

First, make a batch of this vegan shreddable, meltable cheddar cheez. The recipe makes sixteen ounces and you’ll use only half for two tarts. Alternatively, you could just use some Daiya, but it’s expensive (five bucks for half a pound!)…and it doesn’t melt properly!

Next, for each tart, cover a 9 x 13-inch cookie sheet with parchment paper, roll out some Tenderflake puff pastry. Place on the cookie sheet. And Tenderflake puff pastry is vegan, so all is cool there!

Cover each sheet of the puff pastry with 1/4 cup of dijon mustard.

Chop twelve ounces of shallots, divide in two, and spread over the pastry.

Shred half the block of cheddar you made, divide in two and spread half over each tart.

Sprinkle the top of each tart with the leaves from a few sprigs of thyme. Our thyme is still growing like stink in the deck garden!

Toss some freshly ground pepper on the tarts and we’re ready for the oven!

Bake at 400 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes….until puffed up and deeply brown.

We served big slices of the tart with delicious coleslaw from a Minimalist Baker recipe.

And as for the song of the day….today, I came across this lovely cover of “The Book of Love” by Gavin James:

And here’s the original by The Magnetic Fields because I just love this song so much. Its sweet cheesiness is perfectly tempered with more than a hint of cynicism about the nature of love…

I asked James to learn this on the guitar and, while doing so, he discovered another quite lovely version by Peter Gabriel: