After several months of hardcore, pastry-school-worthy Daring Baker’s challenges such as Danish, Éclairs and Opera Cake, this month’s savoury, flat bread challenge felt like a vacation! Our wise and esteemed hosts were Natalie from Gluten A Go Go and Shellyfish from Musings in the Fishbowl and featured a recipe from Peter Reinhart’s The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.
This challenge was a wonderfully on-trend choice since discussion about the Mediterranean diet has been on TV as well in national magazines such as Eating Well and this article carried by Reuters that reviewed 12 international studies concerned with that diet.
So, as Hurricane Ike left a ravished Texas in his wake and was causing lashes of rain to lick my windows all the way up here in Toronto, I spent an afternoon creating a mezze feast that featured this lavash. That evening I sat down with my son Oliver and our family friend Brian to enjoy a Mediterranean diet-inspired platter of sunshine flavoured roasted tomatoes, organic kalamata olives and Greek sheep and goat cheese. We scooped up these morsels with shards of the crisp lavash. It was a lovely, easy-to-enjoy meal.
If you’d like to duplicate my mezze party, all you need to do is to hit the Waldorf School’s Village Market for olives, cheese, tomatoes and basil; roast the tomatoes; then make Peter’s lavash.
Here’s how I prepared the tomatoes:
• Halve roma tomatoes lengthwise.
• Remove and discard seeds.
• Place tomatoes in a bowl and drizzle with just enough extra virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar to coat lightly.
• Sprinkle with sea salt and black pepper.
• Add a couple of minced garlic cloves and toss to combine.
• Spread tomatoes, cut side up, on parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
• Spoon any liquid in the bowl into the tomatoes.
• Roast for 2 hours at 250°F (125°C).
• Cool to room temperature.
• Chop tomatoes and toss with basil chiffonade and more salt, pepper and extra virgin olive oil to taste.
I’m so excited that you enjoyed our Challenge, Dana! And I’ll head to Toronto for a Mediterranean feast any time!
Wonderful looking crackers! I love your accompaniments! Really delicious! You did a great job!
Cheers,
Rosa
Delicious Dana – love those roasted tomatoes.
Hello Dana: Very good your recipe of lavahs crackers. Thank you for your visit and comments in my sweet blog
Wonderful lavash!
That looks really great Dana!!
Those roasted tomatoes look absolutely divine!!! Perfect choice for your beautiful crackers!
I adore all this type of food. What a boon that it’s as good for our bodies as it is for our palates. Beautiful spread!!
What a spread. I love to nibble on a platter like that. Great job.
I love the roasted tomatoes – what a wonderful idea!
i just put the tomatoes in the oven. i can’t wait to try them!
Give me a glass of wine and that platter and I’d be in heaven. 🙂
Hope you like the tomatoes Shelley – i know you’ll know exactly the wine to serve with them! I had extra tomatoes, btw and used them as a simple sauce over papparadelle noodles with shaved grano padano – so good!
Thanks to the DBer’s who’ve popped by today. It was a great challenge and I am so happy to have shared it with all of you!
These look very pretty Dana!! 🙂
Looks delicious I love the sound of the dip.
looks great dana!
Pretty presentation!
So pretty and I love the roasted tomatoes!
What a wonderful idea, I love the Mediterranean theme. Great choice. Well done.
Your feast looks wonderful. And since I am your neighbour…… I will be right over!
Any wine preferences?
Natashya: Are you really my neighbour? If so, email me and let me know what street you’re on. It would be so cool to meet a neighbour via the world wide web!
Everything you whipped up looks wonderful!
That looks like a wonderful meal!
Yum! Your lavash looks divine. I am not wishing I made some.
Can you get sunshine flavoring in a bottle? After three days of rain, I’d love to order some!
Your lavash looks wonderfully crispy – well done!
My sunshine flavouring in a bottle is called a pina colada fortified with a vitamin D tablet…try one and let me know if it helps
your crackers look awesome and nice bubbling like crispy pillows.
great job
Very lovely…
WRT Beelzebub, he’s quite old and needs to be replaced. Not going to bring in the serviceman to recalibrate…will save up for a new stove…hopefully gas.
j
Hope you have full coffers soon Jasmine – that beelzebub oven is not a good scene!
29 comments! I have comment envy.
Your lavash look just like mine! I’m wishing I had eaten mine the same way you did, though. Yum.
What a rocking good party…the dip is outstanding!!
good looking crackers and good idea on roasting the tomato for the spread. I am sure it taste great.
This challenge was a vacation compared to others! Roasted tomatoes sound fabulous and the chrackers look gorgeous.
Beautiful! We love slow roasted tomatoes, but we pulled the last harvest from the garden a few weeks ago, so I’ll have to haunt the farmer’s market to see what they have so we can make these with our next batch of crackers.
Very pretty, and very festive! Bet it brightened your stormy skies!
These are great looking lavash! Great job!
Mmmm….lovely fixings to go with your lavash crackers. Great ideas!
Fabulous spread! Loooks delicious!
Thanks for your very sweet comment. Your lavash looks divine and I love your blog! I fullt intend to roast my first chicken following your instructions in the coming weeks.
Arika
My Yummy Life
Your Mediterranean party sounds delicious and fun!
Thanks to all who have stopped by! Airka, let me know how your chicken works out.
You did amazing, that mediterranean dip sounds really yummy!
thank you for the step by step guide to your gorgeous roasted tomatoes. your lavash looks so effortless! i must say that your first paragraph kinda intimidated me. this was my first challenge and you mentioned that the previous challenges made this challenge seem like… cake… well, i thought *this* challenge was hard! 🙂 now it makes me wonder if the next will be a “hardcore, pastry-school-worthy” challenge? i think i’m up for it, what with the warm welcome i’ve received and hopefully assistance from the more seasoned bakers in the group, such as yourself! 🙂 thanks again!
Lan, don’t worry! If you can read you can bake anything! The hard-core pastry school worthy challenges just take more time both to make and to work off your hips.
How come I don’t get invited to these kinds of parties … ???
Beautiful job, Dana!
Dana, Can I be invited to your party? Perfect pairing, I love it all , and your crackers are so nice and thin. You have my vote here!
It sounds like I might need to buy some folding chairs before I have this party again. No worries! the more the merrier.
It all looks so delicious!
Ooo, your lavash looks wonderful! Great presentation!!
Nice lavash- and those tomatoes sound so simple and tasty!
Looks delicious and such a lovely presentation!
Looks like the perfect way to enjoy those crackers 🙂
Great looking lavash… The roasted tomatoes, olives and Greek sheep and goat cheese sounds like a very tasty lavash topper. Yummy!
Dana, the whole set is amazing! I love every single component!