Hail friends, and thank you for joining us for this year’s Feast Week! At long last, our Hobbit friends have escaped the Barrow-wights and made it to The Prancing Pony.

In a twinkling table was laid. There was hot soup, cold meats, a blackberry tart, new loaves, slabs of butter, and half a ripe cheese: good plain food, as good as the Shire could show, and homelike enough to dispel the last of Sam’s misgivings (already much relieved by the excellence of beer).

– The Fellowship of the Ring, Chapter 9: At the Sign of the Prancing Pony

For my meal, I chose to make (with some help from my talented mother!) homemade bread, a mixed berry tart, and some butternut squash soup, which I washed down with some hard cider – British, of course!

For the tart, I followed Jenny Steffens Hobick’s recipe for a Very Berry Tart^[1]:

Crust1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour1/2 cup light brown sugar8 tablespoons cold unsalted butter1 egg yolk

Filling1 cup of blueberries1 cup of blackberries1 cup of raspberries1/4 cup of sugar

Topping (not pictured)Whipped Cream or Ice CreamSugar

For the crust, combine flour and brown sugar in the mixing bowl.  Cut cold butter into small pieces.  Add it to the flour mixture.  With the whisk attachment mix the butter into the flour and sugar.  The whisk will help to “cut” the butter into the dry ingredients.  When it is crumbly, add egg yolk.  Mix together.  Press the mixture into a tart shell.  The mixture will be crumbly and loose.

Option 1 : Bake for 15-20 minutes at 400 degrees until brown.  Cool and pile with fresh berries (no sugar needed).  Serve with Ice Cream or Whipped Cream.

Option 2 : Pile berries into the uncooked crust.  Sprinkle sugar over the berries.  Cook for 400 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the edges and the berries begin to bubble slightly. Serve warm with Ice Cream or Whipped Cream.

We went with option 2, and made a few adjustments to the recipe: we used a round dish, rather than square; because of this, I threw in some strawberries to make sure we had enough berry filling (and to ensure a more colourful tart). I used a little less than 1/4 cup of sugar on the berries and skipped the whipped cream/ice cream toppings altogether, as I am not very big on dairy products.

As much as I wanted to make the butternut squash soup from scratch, I was short on time and had to make due with store-bought soup (which tasted just fine, thankfully!). All in all, it was a delicious meal, and I cannot wait to experiment with different fruits and berry combinations!

Thanks again for joining us this week! We hope you have enjoyed it as much as we did – and be sure to check out the rest of our staff’s delicious meals^[2]! Cheers!

Other 2015 Feast Week meals:

Feast Week, Day 1: Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday^[3]

Feast Week, Day 2: Sleeping Outdoors^[4]

Feast Week, Day 3: The Feast of Gildor^[5]

Feast Week, Day 4: Farmer Maggot’s Feast^[6]

Feast Week, Day 5: The Feast of Tom Bombadil^[7]

Feast Week, Day 6: The Feast of Tom Bombadil, Day Two^[8]

Feast Week, Day 7: Prisoners of a Barrow-wight^[9]

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Author: Britta Siemen^[10] Britta first read The Hobbit when she was ten years old and has since devoted the majority of her time to studying and writing about Tolkien's legendarium. When not immersed in maps and books, she can be found battling the agents of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings Online.

References

1. ^{^} Very Berry Tart (jennysteffens.blogspot.com)
2. ^{^} check out the rest of our staff’s delicious meals (middleearthnews.com)
3. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 1: Bilbo and Frodo’s Birthday (middleearthnews.com)
4. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 2: Sleeping Outdoors (middleearthnews.com)
5. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 3: The Feast of Gildor (middleearthnews.com)
6. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 4: Farmer Maggot’s Feast (middleearthnews.com)
7. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 5: The Feast of Tom Bombadil (middleearthnews.com)
8. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 6: The Feast of Tom Bombadil, Day Two (middleearthnews.com)
9. ^{^} Feast Week, Day 7: Prisoners of a Barrow-wight (middleearthnews.com)
10. ^{^} Posts by Britta Siemen (middleearthnews.com)