On My Plate: Pizza-inspired tarts
One Institute for Learning in Retirement class recently took a field trip to MOON Co-op to try their hand at baking tarts with a pizza twist.
As one of the more than 1,000 member-owners of MOON Co-op, I try to advocate for shopping locally for healthy food. Last week, that meant leading a dozen students at the Institute for Learning in Retirement (ILR) through the process of making pizza-inspired tarts, right outside the store.
The ILR students were enrolled in the course “The Many Aspects of Food in Our Lives.” For the final session, they visited MOON, and we set up food preparation stations in the courtyard running between Tropical Smoothie and Fox Cleaners. We pulled MOON’s emergency backup portable oven out of storage to lead the class in baking pizza-inspired tarts.
The dozen students were divided into three groups of four. First step was to generously grease 6-inch springform pans with unsalted sweet butter, produced in Ohio by Hartzler Family Dairy, operated for 75 years by four generations of the Hartzler family. Generous greasing imparted flavor, and at the end of the process, the tarts didn’t stick to the pans.
Each group placed into a bowl 1/4 cup organic unbleached white flour and 1/4 cup organic whole wheat flour from the bulk food section at MOON Co-op. Whole wheat flour produces a much more flavorful shell than white flour, but whole wheat doesn’t knead well unless mixed with white. To form a pliable dough, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons olive oil and 3 tablespoons water were added to the bowl.
Each group placed their dough on a wooden board lightly dusted with flour and spread into a 9-inch diameter circle. One student from each group spread the dough by pressing it with the palm of the hand. A rolling pin could have pressed the dough too firmly, making it too thin and fragile.
Transferring the dough to the tart pan took some time and care. Once in the pan, the dough had to be pressed evenly into the bottom and side by first pressing it into the lower half of the side of the pan and then across the bottom. The shell needed to completely cover the bottom and lower half of the side evenly and not too thickly. Once safely nestled into the pan, the shell was pricked all over with a fork and baked in a 375-degree oven for 10 minutes.
As the shells baked, the students went back into MOON Co-op in search of pizza-inspired toppings. Each group returned to their cooking stations with a collection of sauce, mushrooms, onions, peppers, asparagus, pepperoni, cheese and probably other items not recalled here. All three groups chose to start construction by first spreading a base of sauce on the baked shell, though they varied its thickness. The sauce of choice was tomato-based from Local Folks Foods, produced in Sheridan, Indiana, by Steven and Anita Spencer, who partner through a cooperative with nearby farms.
The three groups chopped their selected toppings to varying sizes, then placed them on the sauce in varying densities. They all chose to sprinkle shredded mozzarella and parmesan cheese on top, again varying in quantity of each. Finally, it was time to bake the completed pizza-inspired tarts for another 20 minutes at 375 degrees.
Class was set to end at noon, and we removed the tarts from the oven around 11:45. Everyone cut their tarts into portions for each student to try, but at 11:58, the sky turned pitch-black as the heaviest rainstorm since Noah’s Ark descended upon Oxford.
Class thereby ended unceremoniously, with everyone pitching in to quickly relocate equipment and leftover food inside the Co-op. Next time, we’ll make certain that the class meets outside of MOON Co-op on a sunny day.
James Rubenstein is president of the Board of Directors for the Oxford Free Press and professor emeritus of geography at Miami University.
