Concert / Picnic in the Park

Tuesday nights in the summer are Concerts in the park here in Issaquah, and it's a great time for us to meet up with several other friends and enjoy some good music, tasty food, fine wine and great converstation. We've made a ritual of it every Tuesday night for the past two summers...between 8-12 of our friends each make a salad dish to share and a few bottles of wine ... makes for a great pacific northwest evening.

For tonights picnic I made a really good plum tart dessert. (We had been to Costco and bought a container of plums big enough to feed the town of Eureka and then realized that we can't possibly eat them all between the 4 of us). Here is the recipe:

Plum Tart
2 lbs plum or Italian prunes (which are a bit smaller) pitted and quartered
2 cups flour
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 1/2 sticks melted butter
1 egg yolk

Mix flour, walnuts, sugar, butter and egg until crumbly. Press into springform pan or tart pan (reserve 1/2 cup for topping). Arrange the plums, cut side down, in a flower type pattern starting along the outside and working inward. Sprinkle remaining crumbs evenly on top.

Bake at 400 degrees for 40-50 minutes until the plum juices are bubbly.

It really was good. Would have been even better with a bit of vanila ice cream, but really, ice cream makes anything better!