The Queen of Hearts She Made Some Tarts...

The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day.

The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away.

The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore.

The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vowed he'd steal no more.


I was getting ready to post something this morning about all the cooking I did yesterday for a Valentine's get together and as I was downloading this picture, this old nursery rhyme popped into my head. The mind is really something -- why do I remember something like this?

So...yesterday I had my single gal pals over for dinner for Valentine's Day (SO was out of town and we celebrated from Friday night on till he left on Sunday morning). I cooked up a storm and I offer many apologies that I only got a shot of the Chocolate Tarts and not even before I put them on a pretty plate. I ran a little short of time so I couldn't take a picture of the homemade pizza (with apples, nuts and cheese) and the Sherried Squash Soup with Toasted Pepitas (with heavy accents of smoked paprika). My guests loaded up the table with appetizers, pink champagne, flowers, salad, and a beautiful raspberry cheesecake with a red heart stenciled on top.

It was a lovely way to spend Valentine's and I enjoyed putting the whole production together complete with red tablecloth and a string of lighted red hearts.

It was a little different for me from my usual parties because there were a lot of things I wasn't doing due to being in the first two weeks of the South Beach Diet (on day twelve today, not that I'm counting the days, hours, minutes, etc.). I didn't have the champagne, the desserts, soup, or pizza. I confess to small tastes as I needed to know whether any of the new recipes were worth repeating (pizza, yes; chocolate tarts, yes; soup, probably not). Maybe this seems a little bizzare not to stop and smell last night's roses, but on the other hand, when you are going somewhere, you never get there if you constantly stop and take side trips. The first two weeks of this plan are really about breaking away from a lot of habits and then re-building new ones so, as my aunt said to me, it's CRITICAL. In any event, only three more days before I start re-building my habits.

But, back to the Chocolate Tarts featured in the picture. Wow, wow, wow...so easy and so good. I got the recipe from Alice Waters, "The Art of Simple Food". It's just a tart shell (I used the pre-made pie crust that come rolled in a tube) which you pre-bake for 15 minutes. Then, you take 6 oz. of bittersweet chocolate (strange coincidence that Sharfenberger made exactly that size package? I think not!) and chop it up. To that you add 1 cup of heavy cream that you've scalded. Pour the cream over the chocolate and stir till just smooth and then ladle the chocolate mixture into the tart shells. Let them sit for one hour and you have got perfect Chocolate Tarts.

I'm pretty sure if the Knave of Hearts tasted these tarts, he'd decide the beating was worth it!