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I just couldn't NOT share this recipe from Simply Recipes. It reminds me of a delicious little appetizer that my good friend Stacy makes on occasion. Hers involves slicing a baguette and topping the pieces with chopped walnuts, pears and crumbles of gorgonzola cheese. She then bakes it in the oven a little bit before serving. The combination of flavors - sweet fruit, earthy nuts and salty, pungent cheese - are absolutely heavenly.

This recipe uses apples instead of pears, incorporates thyme, and is a bit more involved, but still does not look too hard considering that you can use a refrigerated, ready-made pie crust. I'll post the entire recipe below the jump. Enjoy!

Apple Walnut Gorgonzola Rustic Tart
Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

1 Pâte Brisée (tart dough) for a 10-inch tart (see all butter crust recipe) or 1 packaged, flat pie crust
1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
1/4 cup crumbled gorgonzola cheese (or blue cheese)
1 Tbsp. fresh thyme, chopped, or 1/2 teaspoon dried
2 Tbsp. maple syrup
2 large granny smith apples (or other good cooking apples such as jonagold or fuji), peeled, cored, chopped
1 tsp. lemon juice (optional)

Method:

1. Toss the walnuts, gorgonzola, thyme, chopped apples, and maple syrup together in a medium size bowl. As you are working with the apples (chopping them, mixing them in with the other ingredients), if you want, you can squeeze a little lemon juice on them to help keep them from discoloring. Cover the mixture with plastic wrap while you prepare the crust.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out pastry dough to 13 inches, at an 1/8 of an inch thickness. Place pastry dough on a rimmed baking sheet. (Rimmed because the pastry will leak butter during the cooking process.) Mound the filling in the middle of the rolled out dough, and spread out evenly to 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches from the edge of the dough. Pleat the edges of the dough over the filling.

3. Bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until crust is nicely browned. If at any time it looks like the walnuts are getting a little burnt, you can lightly tent a piece of aluminum foil over the center.

Remove from oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving. A pizza wheel works great for slicing up the tart.

Source: Simply Recipes