Food Revolution Potluck Healthy Brunch

One of my fellow Food Revolution Ambassadors organized a Healthy Potluck Brunch at the Centre of Social Innovation in the Annex where she is a member.  It's a great meeting space and pretty easy to get to when the TTC is cooperating.

l to r.  Susan, me, Ilona, Jessica & Hema - photo by Susan

There was a small group of 5 of us and 3 out of the 5 of us were Food Revolution Ambassadors.  Since 2 of us don't have any kids it's hard to work with schools to do Food Revolution activities so it was great to just have a Potluck for anyone that wanted to join.  We were joined by 2 other food bloggers.  Although we are all Food Bloggers we hadn't all met before so it was a great way to meet and share food under the Food Revolution umbrella.

We enjoyed a nice variety of dishes from Susan's Healthy Devilled Eggs to a Roasted almond vinaigrette dressing salad with Fennel and Avocado.  Hema made a healthy bread and Ilona made Sweet Potato muffins that tasted like pumpkin pie.  Jessica made Crepes from scratch with Chia strawberry Jam.  I made an Asparagus Tart and an Asparagus simple salad with the rest of the Asparagus.

I know Hema (NomadicNutritionist)  will do a follow up blog post on her blog but I wanted to do a post to put the recipe up for the Asparagus Tart that I made as my Potluck dish.

When it comes to Potluck recipes I usually decide kind of at the last minute to see how much time and ingredients I have.   This recipe came from the fact that I had a bunch of Asparagus that I knew I couldn't eat all by myself unless I ate it everyday for  a few days and because it's a fresh spring vegetable that you think of when you think Healthy Spring Brunch Dishes.

I turned my fresh Asparagus into an Asparagus Spring Tart.

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 bunch of Fresh Asparagus
2 eggs
1/2 cup of grated Gruyere Cheese
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp parsley
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1 Tbsp Mayonnaise or you can use Greek Yoghurt
1/2 Tbsp milk, cream or half and half.  I used milk because that's what I had.
1/2 tsp Dijon Mustard
Freezer Puff Pastry - I used Presidents Choice because it's in a roll easy to use.


DIRECTIONS:

Blanch the Asparagus in boiling salted water for about a minute or until it turns bright green and then remove the asparagus and shock it to stop the cooking by placing it in a iced water.  Remove and drain and set aside

Make sure the Puff Pastry has thawed over night in the fridge or at least a few hours as per package instructions.  I used Presidents Choice Puff Pastry with you just un roll in one piece.  It's so much easier than rolling out one solid block of puff pastry which is what I used to do.

Place the puff pastry on a cookie sheet lined with Parchment paper and poke holes into the pastry using a fork  so that it doesn't puff up all the way when you bake it.   Place the puff pastry dough in a 450 degree oven and bake for about 10 minutes.  If it puffs up you can poke holes in it.

Remove it from the oven and let it cook while making the custard mix.

In a small bowl mix the 2 eggs and add the milk, mayonnaise, mustard and seasonings and add 3/4 of the Grated Gruyere cheese.  You can use any size grated but I used the larger holes when I did it.
I spread the custard mix over the puff pastry in a thin layer and left a but uncovered at the edge.
Place the asparagus spears over the custard mix in a row filling up all of the puff pastry surface.

Sprinkle the rest of the Gruyere cheese on top and bake in the same 450 degree oven for another 15 to 20 minutes until the egg custard mix has set and the pastry is golden brown.

It may be soft because of the cheese but will set up when the cheese cools.   Serve warm or room temperature.

Serves 4-6 people as an appetizer or side dish.  Goes great with a salad or even a Steak.