Ina and Ama - a homage to Julia and Julie REVISED

NOTE TO MY LOYAL READERS - it seems that I feel asleep while preparing this post the other night -- and ended up posting my draft rather than saving it to be edited. That's why there were blanks, and missing photos, and abcdefg ?????

After seeing the movie Julia and Julie, I felt hungry and inspired to tackle some new recipes. My blogging pals have taken to chronicling their culinary adventures so here was my chance.

The occasion was ladies group dinner that I was hosting this month. I usually try something different -- I had decided that the entree was going to be Shauna's Prefect Winter Stew, the appetiser was going to be Lianne's amuse bouche from the summer and dessert was going to come from the new cookbook that came my way at Chistmas.

The recipe is French Apple Tart.

Here's what inspired me on the left and what I produced on the right.

I was overjoyed when I discovered that Lianne had drawn my name for Christmas and secretly hoped that I would be getting the book as a gift, as I had made it very clear how much I loved it. And the Christmas wish came true as not only did I get the lovely cookbook, I got two important staples that Ina Garten swears by -- kosher salt and good olive oil.
Ina wrote in the intro to the recipe that this "might be [her] all-time favourite dessert. It's the simple essence of sweet apples and crisp pastry with no distractions." Sounded easy enough. And then there were signs telling me this was the right recipe to try.

I could tell she loved this recipe because she's even making it on the front cover of the book. And she said I could use frozen puff pastry instead of making the crest --- win-win I thought.

And it was easy -- -but I discovered afterwards, when the crust didn't work that I had bought phyllo instead of puffed pastry. So that changed things ---crust wise --- It looked and smelled great -- and tasted great once you got past the layers of parchment paper pastry.

The pastry looked like a Gr. 7 or 8's aged paper assignment for history class -- you know the ones when the kids age the paper with tea bags and then burn the edges -- I hate it when these crumbling assignments get handed in -- imagine my dismay when I saw that this is what I was going to be serving my guests.

But that's the good thing about this ladies group -- you can experiment and not worry too much when something doesn't work out. I'm happy to say that the appetiser, entree and salad courses were successful -- 3 out of 4 is Level 3 in my books. Gives me something to shoot for next time.

So lesson learned -- note to self -- look for puffed pastry. Read the labels. Carefully.