Asparagus, Egg, and Prosciutto Tart with Everything Spice.

Brightening Monday with this Asparagus, Egg, and Prosciutto Tart with Everything Spice.

Mondays…do you love them or do you hate them? I personally love and look forward to them. They mark the start of a fresh new week, and a new week has so much potential. And to me, that’s pretty exciting.

This particular week includes this very springy tart (which I am obviously most excited about), plus a whole hour of extra daylight (…meaning spring is almost here!). Speaking of which, are any of you still a little tired from losing an hour of sleep or were you able to sleep in on Sunday morning? While I am feeling energized and excited, I’m still a little tired at the same time.

Anyway, my point in these rambles are that I’m ready for a new week and can’t wait to see what it brings. Fingers crossed it’s filled with good meetings, good food, and maybe even some shopping for an upcoming NYC trip…plus a good amount of family too, because I can’t go long without them.

On to this tart…because it’s beyond delicious, perfect spring, even more perfect for Easter, and I LOVE it.

This is one of those recipes that started out as something entirely different, but gradually turned into what you see here.

Let me explain.

There are times when I think I am going to love a recipe. Like I know I should really love it. I’ve mapped out good flavors, the colors are vibrant, it’s seasonally appropriate…it should be just great. But for some reason I make it and it’s just not what I thought it would be. When this happens, I either decide that I want to keep working on the recipe and try to get it to what I envisioned, or I decide it’s not worth the effort and ditch the idea all together, or…I reinvent it completely.

This tart is a failed recipe reinvented, and I am so happy I decided not to give up and keep creating. Oddly, I find that some of my best recipes come from failed recipes and this tart is no exception.

Backing up now. Originally, I started with a simple asparagus and egg bake. No pastry, no cheese, just some asparagus, eggs, and a little sauce. It really should have been good, but you guys? It was boring and lacked creativity. I didn’t like it and I knew it was not HBH material.

I didn’t want to give up though because I loved the idea of creating a simple asparagus and egg dish for spring. So I did a quick brainstorm session while huddled over my stove (because I am not normal and my stove acts as my personal heater), grabbed some pastry from my freezer, the prosciutto from the fridge, that extra bundle of asparagus I still had, and got to work. Basically, all I did was elevate my original dish by adding carbs, cheese, everything spice, and prosciutto…

OK. That’s a lot of (very delicious) additions, but promise, this tart is as simple as can be and you can even make it ahead of time for easy entertaining. Cool. Cool.

Start with a little puff pastry, add everything spice (literally my favorite thing these days, try it with your avocado, it’s the best), fresh basil, a little Gruyère cheese, asparagus and prosciutto. Bake that all up in the oven and allow the pasty to get puffy, the cheese to melt, the asparagus to roast, and the prosciutto to get extra crispy. YUM.

While that’s happening, mix up a quick spring herb salad with arugula, basil, dill, and good amount of lemon.

Cook up some eggs. You can soft boil, hard boil or even do a fried egg. I prefer soft for this because I love that slightly runny yolk all over the roasted asparagus. So good.

Put it all together. Finish with more everything spice. EAT.

You see? The simplest and most delicious spring tart. The everything spice makes this tart addicting. It adds so much flavor it’s insane, and it pairs really well with the asparagus and eggs. Serve this up for Easter brunch, an easy lunch, or a little breakfast for dinner (which you know is my personal favorite).

Either way, I am feeling pretty confident you’ll love this.

And hey, it’s so green and colorful that I’m thinking it should be considered healthy…ish.

Cheese tarts and Mondays…such a great combination. It’s true.