Savoury Tarts

Surprise surprise, this blog is not dead yet!
It's been a bit inactive, for sure, but now that autumn is crawling in I'll cook and post more frequently.
It's been a busy summer and now it's being a busy September and this weekend is intended to be dedicated to relaxing. So today I thought I'd do some baking and started by making a savoury tart with feta, cherry tomatoes and olives. I had made this same tart a couple of months ago, only that the main ingredients of the filling were Swiss Chard and Gruyere instead and for a first attempt it had turned out to be a success!

On another note, I'd like to share with you a couple of finds. First of all, for those who live in London and like eating out in restaurants (I imagine most), I came across this blog in which the author reviews London restaurants and gives minutely detailed accounts of his visits and dishes. I was quite excited I discovered this because the author is quite clearly a pro (just read his guide to steaks. awesome!) and even though one can have a different opinion on some topics, it's professionally written and gives a great insight. All in all, I'd say it's a great guide and you can see most of London's most buzzed about restaurants featured on his list.

The second thing that got me excited this week is something for those who work around the area of Trafalgar square/ Covent Garden (or those who like going there): A relatively new cafe with one of the best-tasting coffees in town and an amazing atmosphere. The place is decorated in shabby chic style, it has a big bar with mirrors behind it bistro-like, a big communal table at the end of the room, a glass dome above it from where the light comes in, lovely friendly hipster staff (without being pushy though) and jazz music playing in the background. I was so excited to stumble on it as there is hardly a sophisticated place around the area where everything is mainly on the touristic side of things. Oh, I forgot to say that it's located on St Martin's lane, next to the Coliseum theatre and it's called Notes. And that they also have a collection of jazz and classical music CDs available for sale, as well as DVDs. Doesn't all that sound great? And the place has been there for almost a year without me knowing it..
Anyway, as well as being a cafe (fantastic flat white served there) and having some lunch dishes and pastries, in the evening it becomes a wine bar with a variety of cheeses and charcuterie available for accompanying.

Now back to the recipe and first the ingredients:

For the shortcrust pastry:
175 gr plain four
90 gr butter
about 2 tbs cold water
tin of 23cm diameter

For the filling:
You can use your imagination and customise the filling to your liking or mood so feel free to improvise combining your favourite ingredients and flavours.

2 eggs, lightly beaten
2/3 cup whole milk
salt & pepper
1 medium onion, sliced thin
2-3 tbs olive oil
180 gr crumbled feta
oregano or thyme
6 cherry tomatoes, halved
a handful of sliced olives
or, replace the last 5 ingredients with:
1 bunch of Swiss Chard, washed and patted dry
180 gr of any cheese like Gruyere or goat's

First I made the pastry by tipping the flour into a bowl and rubbing the butter with my fingertips. I added water to bind it to a soft dough and wrapped it in cling film and left it in the fridge to chill for half an hour.
Then I rolled out the pastry with a rolling pin on a lightly floured surface and lined the tin. I pricked the bottom of the pastry shell with a fork and then covered/lined the pastry shell with greaseproof paper and filled it with ceramic baking beans (otherwise the pastry will puff and will not remain flat).

Then I put the tin in the oven and baked it for 15-20 minutes at 220, removing the paper and beans for the last 10 minutes.

Then I started working on the filling, first by gently frying the onion in some olive oil until translucent.
Then, in a bowl, I combined the beaten eggs and milk, salt and pepper. I layered the onion on the bottom of the pastry base, then poured over it the egg/milk mixture and added the feta, cherry tomatoes and olives on top. I also sprinkled some oregano over. If you do this with Swiss Chard (or spinach or any other vegetable of this kind), you will need to saute it with the onions first.

This time I put some foil underneath my tin because my tin has a removable bottom and I've learnt my lesson well. This way, even if it drips, it has somewhere to go.

I baked it at 175-200 for about 30-40 minutes, until the tart started to get a golden colour and the custard was cooked.

And here is what I did while I waited for it to be baked. Although not as glamorous as having wine, I had had a glass or two every night the past 4 nights (consecutively...) so I thought I'd give my liver a rest.

Lastly, I'd like to show you something I'm proud of - proud because in the 3 weeks I've had it, it still hasn't shown any signs of dying - at all!! So it looks like I'm taking good care of it and I've been using it in cooking a lot. Now a fireplace may be an unlikely place for a pot of chilli peppers but I actually quite like it there. And speaking of chilli peppers, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers are coming to the UK in November as part of their tour and I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing them if I can. I've tried to buy tickets already via Ticketmaster but there seems to be some error as it won't let me. Perhaps sold out?I'll keep trying!

Baking on a rainy Sunday

Hello all!
I hope you like the new design of the blog, I spent a few hours yesterday trying out different things and this is the result. I personally like it more now, but think that it might be slightly harder to read and definitely harder to see the pictures as they kind of get lost in the background. Don't worry though as I'm sure I'll re-design it again sometime soon but for now please do tell me your opinion!

The whole day of today was spent baking as we're organising a charity bake sale at work tomorrow and since I was the one who suggested it I needed to make an effort. Also, the weather this weekend was beyond miserable with heavy rain pouring down and dark skies but  then again this is the ideal weather for staying in and baking! Part of the reason I'm being so positive though is that my much awaited summer holidays are approaching and I don't care if it's going to be raining, snowing or whatever else until then because in 3 weeks I'm off to bluer skies!

Back to the bake sale now, as tomorrow we're raising money to support Oxfam's appeal for East Africa and this is what I made to take with me tomorrow: Parmesan and rosemary biscuits, for those who fancy a savoury snack. Oatmeal cream pies, for an extra afternoon sugar rush. Goat's cheese and olive muffins, my personal favourite.

Making the parmesan & rosemary biscuits and the savoury muffins was very easy and quick but the oatmeal cream pies....that was tricky! I hadn't realised how difficult it is to spread the dough on the baking sheet without crumbling it (that alone took me more than an hour), how time-consuming baking the cookies in 3 batches is and then...making the swiss meringue! By the time I had everything pretty much assembled, the kitchen looked like a very big mess and I still had more to do.

I am sharing a couple of pics of my "products" and the tart I made yesterday for dinner.

Rosemary and Parmesan biscuits:

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground pepper

1 tsp baking powder

2 springs rosemary, chopped

3 1/2 tbs freshly grated parmesan

2 eggs

3 tbs unsalted butter, melted

Preheat the oven to 180 C. In the bowl of a mixer, combine the first six ingredients. In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs and the butter and add to the dry ingredients. Mix until combined.

Divide the dough into equal balls (whatever shape you like) and scoop on a baking sheet. Flatten with the back of a spoon or make them whatever shape you like. Place on the baking tray and bake for about 30 minutes, or until golden and dry.

Last bank holiday of May

And since I recently mentioned that I have a new dining table that I made myself, I'd like to share with you a pic or two. The actual table doesn't show very well and it's covered in plates and food but that's what it's meant to be used for, right? I took these a couple of weeks ago when our good friends Evi and Andre visited for the weekend and we made a couple of things to have as dinner. The menu consisted of:

-Portuguese cheese (oh dear, I forgot the name again!), charcuterie, red hot cherry peppers filled with ricotta, Poilane bread
-Steamed asparagus and smoked salmon with parmesan shavings and honey vinaigrette
-Crevette risotto with saffron and vegetables
-Tomato tarte
-Tarte Tatin for dessert
-Vinho verde

We had a lovely time and the weekend pretty much evolved around food and on the Sunday I had booked us a table at Providores for brunch. I was looking really forward to it as I had never been there before but I ended up slightly disappointed: The food was very good, but nothing that we haven't had before at Lantana and other places of more reasonable prices. The atmosphere downstairs was cozy and casual (but too crowded on that particular day, but that's what happens with popular places I guess) but we were seated upstairs were it was more fancy-restaurant-like and it lacked the hype vibe. We all made a great discovery though: Turkish baked eggs in yoghurt!! Even I, having had a longtime love-hate relationship with eggs, could not believe I hadn't tried this before, or didn't even know it existed.

I didn't take a photo of Evi's Turkish eggs but here is a pic I found on the internet:

We also went to Ginger and White (it almost sounds like I'm advertising the place) and had a coffee before going for a walk in the Heath. Here are some pictures from that day:

Oven-roasted king scallops

Today we woke up in a very energetic mode (despite the bad weather) and we jogged up to Hampstead village. It's so much more motivating than going to the gym and running on the treadmill, because you know that when you get there, there will be coffee waiting for you as a treat for your efforts. And so we had two flat whites at Ginger and White, waited for the rain to stop and walked back home again to make lunch (a very late one).

Here are some pictures I took (discreetly, I hope) at Ginger and White - one of my favourite coffee places:

Towards the end of the itinerary it started to rain again and we run through it, getting home soaked and tired. I didn't want to make something that would cancel our efforts and I was still thinking of a scallop dish I ate in Copenhagen while I was visiting for work last week. They were oven-roasted and had a pesto-like sauce but I decided to completely make something up - a sauce of my own creation:

I made a pesto-salsa verde hybrid by mixing garlic, pine nuts, basil, parsley, dill, lemon and olive oil.
Please don't ask me the measurements because I didn't actually measure, I just put all the ingredients together in the blender, in quantities that seemed fit to me. And so I blended them.

I cut about 10 vine tomatoes in half, put them cut side down in a baking tray and sprinkled with just a dash of olive oil. Then I roasted them in the oven for about 10-15 minutes.

Then I took a tablespoon or two of the green herb sauce and mixed it with some vine tomatoes (3-4) and blended these too (separately) to make a tomato sauce.

In the meantime, I took the tomatoes out of the oven and kept them aside. I seasoned the king scallops and put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. If you have a better/faster oven then mine, you might need less time.

After roasting the scallops I put them in a serving dish with some of the roasted tomatoes and sprinkled them with the green and the tomato sauce according to taste.

To accompany, I steamed some asparagus for 2 minutes, poured over them some vinaigrette and  parmesan shavings. I make the vinaigrette by mixing olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a teaspoon of honey.

Et voila, a light but tasty lunch

Fried Tomato Balls and a new dining table

I have been away for so long I don't even remember when the last time was that I sat down to post something.
I had a few reasons though as there have been things going on - 2 bookfairs, Easter holidays, the usual busy schedule and some DIY that I have been doing recently! Yes, I realised one day that this flat needed some re-decoration and re-vamping but didn't want to spend a lot of money either. Besides, I had been looking for the ideal dining table and chairs all over and could not find what I wanted - so I made it myself (thanks to many design blogs which showed me how to). I was very worried in the beginning that things would not work out and I would end up throwing away to the bin the pieces of furniture I had bought (yes, cheap, but still..) and that I was just wasting my time making our flat look like a studio / lab. But in the end everything turned out very nice and now we actually have a decent table that doesn't wobble to eat on!
So, returning to a more relevant to this blog subject, a few weeks ago I made tomato fritters, or fried tomato balls , call them as you like. I tend to not use the frying pan very much as it's not the healthiest way of cooking, but some times you just need something fried and nothing else will do.  These tomato balls can be found on many of the Greek islands (and nowdays, the mainland too) and they are a great starter or mezze. The taste will depend a lot on the tomatoes, so they'd better be of a good quality, ripe and pretty. And you know what? they are suitable for vegetarians too!
Here is how I made them, following loosely Tesa Kiros' recipe:

300 gr ripe red tomatoes
70 gr red onion, chopped
3 tbsp chopped parsley
100 gr plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
olive oil, for frying

Slice the tomatoes into 6 wedges, then chop each wedge into 4 pieces.
Scrape off the board where you were chopping the tomatoes into a bowl but leave behind any excess juice. Add the onion, parsley and half the flour to the bowl and season with salt and pepper.

Leave for 10 minutes or so to soften
Now make a paste with the remaining flour, the baking powder and 80 ml (1/3 cup) of water.

Add this paste to the bowl and mix in well.
Heat a generous amount of olive oil in the frying pan until very hot. Scoop up a good tablespoon of the mixture and with another spoon, scrape this into the hot olive oil in irregular fritters. Fry a few at a time and turn them over when golden to fry the other side.

as the tomato fritters were being fried - a view from the kitchen window

frying the tomato balls in irregular fritters

Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a plate with kitchen paper. Serve them on a clean plate.

You might want to add mint when you make the batter, to give it a zingy flavour but parsley is definitely a winner!

Jasmine tea infused pears

A couple of weeks ago I bought an Australian Woman's Weekly issue (my mother used to buy it too when I was a kid) featuring low fat recipes to give me some inspiration as I went through another "healthy eating" spell.
The section that I liked the most was the desserts one and who wouldn't love an almost guilt-free dessert?
Stewed fruit, sorbets and jellies are actually so refreshing after a meal I might even say I prefer them to chocolate or brownies (pies remain on the top of my list though).
These jasmine tea infused pears are almost fat free (the only sinful ingredient in the recipe is sugar, but it's only 75 grams!)

Ingredients:

1 tbsp jasmin tea leaves or 4 jasmine tea bags
75 g firmly packed brown sugar
1 litre boiling water
4 pears
2 cinnamon sticks
2 star anise

-Combine tea leaves (or tea bags), sugar and water in a large heatproof jug and stir until the sugar dissolves. Let it stand for 10 minutes. Strain and discard the leaves (or bags).
-Meanwhile peel, half and core the pears. Combine them with the tea mixture and spices (cinnamon sticks and star anise) in a medium saucepan and bring to the boil. Reduce heat and leave to simmer uncovered, until the pears are tender - about 25 minutes or so.
-Transfer the pears to serving bowls.
-Boil the syrup, uncovered, until reduced by half.
-Serve the pears with the syrup.

Calories: 161 per 400g serving
fat: 0.1g

We had the 2 of them for dessert after the lamb on polenta, on red sauce (see previous post) and I served the other two on top of french toast for breakfast the next morning.

ps: I had another great fruity dessert last Friday night at Mon Plaisir - oranges salad marinated in Sauternes dessert wine, with mint sorbet. Incredible awesomeness! (I have to find out how they made it)

Lamb chops with red sauce and polenta

This weekend was one of those where we have our groceries delivered at home and among them were 8 NZ lamb chops. I was probably craving for lamb when I placed the order.
I combined two recipes I have found from Nigella's website and another food blog and ended up making grilled lamb chops on top of blue cheese polenta, on top of an onion and olive red sauce.


Here is a list of the ingredients I used:


8 lamb chops
2 red onions, sliced
4 cloves of garlic, sliced
400g can of diced tomatoes
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
1 handful of flat leaf parsley, sliced
50g black olives
200ml water
500ml vegetable stock
120g polenta
120g blue cheese
2 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to season


-Heat 1 tbsp of olive oil in a pan over low heat then add the onion and garlic and cook until the onion starts to colour and become soft.
-Add the tomatoes, rosemary, parsley, olives and water and turn up the heat until the mixture starts to bubble and boil.
-Bring the stock to the boil in a separate saucepan then remove from the heat and gradually add the polenta, stirring as you add it. Stir through the blue cheese and cover with a lid to keep warm.
-Once the tomato mixture has started to boil, turn the heat back down to low and cover and simmer for a futher 5 minutes or until the sauce starts to thicken.
-Brush the lamb chops with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Cook either on a BBQ or under the grill for 10 minutes.
-Serve the chops on top of the tomato sauce and polenta.

Serves two, hungry people.