Summer Vegetable Tarts

Even though it's now officially Autumn, there are still so many Summer vegetables around in the fruit and veg shops and markets. I know that our tomato plant is flourishing!

A light puff pastry tart is the perfect way to use up some of those vegetables in a fresh and easy way. Shop bought frozen puff pastry is just so easy to work with, and is great to have in the freezer to use for sweet and savoury treats, whenever the mood strikes you. As much as fresh pastry is delicious, as a working mum, I just don't have the time to make my own, especially puff pastry.

These tarts are perfect as a quick mid-week meal and would also be lovely as a light weekend lunch. Serve them with a salad or some roasted vegetables to make it a more substantial dinner.

The zucchini is only barely cooked, but because it is sliced so thinly, it is delicious. The creamy Danish feta adds saltiness and the roasted red capsicum sauce a beautiful sweetness.

I like making individual tarts, because they look much more pretty, but you could easily make this into one tart to serve at the table. For a dinner party, cut the pastry into nine or twelve squares to make canapés. Lovely to serve with a glass of Champagne at the beginning of the night!

 Whip these tarts up for your next lunch or dinner and see how quickly they disappear!

Summer Vegetable Tarts

2 red capsicums

1 Tbs olive oil

1 sheet frozen puff pastry, defrosted

80g Danish feta

2 spring onions, thinly sliced white and inner green part

A handful of mint leaves + extra to garnish, finely chopped

1 small zucchini

1 Tbs toasted pinenuts

Vegetables or salad to serve

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat a grill to high heat.

Cut capsicums in half and remove seeds and membranes.

Place skin side up on a foil covered tray and grill until the skin is blackened and blistered.

Wrap the capsicum in the foil and set aside for 10 minutes for the skin to loosen. Peel the blackened skin off and discard.

Place roasted capsicum flesh and oil in a blender and whiz until smooth. Season to taste and set aside.

Preheat oven to 220 degrees.

Lay pastry sheet out on a work bench and cut into quarters. 

To make tarts, score the pastry completely around the outside, about 1cm in from the edge. Prick the centre with a fork. See the top tarts in the photo.

Alternatively, cut completely through the pastry 1cm in from the edge, except for 1cm at the two opposite corners. Fold the pastry strips across the square to create a decorative edge. Prick the centre with a fork. See the photo for the finished product.

Brush the outside of the pastry squares with milk and place on a tray lined with baking paper.

Par cook pastry cases for 10 minutes, or until puffed and golden. Use an oven mitt and a spoon to push down the centre of the pastry so that it is flat. Remove from the oven.

Using a vegetable peeler, cut long ribbons from the zucchini and set aside.

In a small bowl, mash feta with a fork until smooth. Add mint, spring onion and season with pepper. 

Spread the feta mixture into the pastry cases.

Top with zucchini ribbons and return to the oven for 5 minutes, or until the pastry is completely golden and the zucchini has softened.

Place blobs of the capsicum puree over the tarts and return to the oven for 1-2 minutes to warm through.

Carefully remove tarts from the baking tray onto serving plates. Sprinkle with toasted pinenuts and extra chopped mint.

Serve with vegetables or salad.

Enjoy!

Chargrilled Eggplant And Zucchini Salad

After a long weekend away in Tasmania, eating and drinking lots of delicious things, I was in desperate need of some simple vegetables!

As much as I love to eat out and enjoy new and different food, nothing beats a simple homemade meal.

With a few vegies left in the fridge before we headed away, I knew that they needed to be made into something before they would be wasted. This salad is the result of using up leftovers, and I must admit that it was pretty tasty.

The creamy Danish feta combined with the oil and lemon juice to make a lovely dressing on the vegetables. Being chargrilled first, the zucchini and eggplant were nice and soft, but still with a little bit of bite. You could also roast some red capsicum and add that to the salad for extra sweetness.

I served my salad so that the vegetables were still warm. I think the flavour in the eggplant and zucchini are much nicer when they aren't too cold. If you were preparing the vegetables earlier in the day, either take them out of the fridge an hour or so before serving to warm up, or give them a short burst in the microwave to heat them up.

Toasted almonds would also be perfect in this salad, if you didn't have any pinenuts. You just want something to add a little bit of toasty crunchiness.

Enjoy this salad on it's own or with some beautiful fresh crusty bread and butter.

Chargrilled Eggplant And Zucchini Salad

1 eggplant
1 zucchini
3 spring onions, trimmed and white and inner green parts cut into thin rounds
2 tsp toasted pinenuts, plus extra to serve
50g Danish feta, diced
A handful each of baby spinach and rocket
A sprig of parlsey, leaves coarsely chopped
1 Tbs lemon juice
2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper to taste

Slice eggplant and zucchini lengthways into 5mm thin slices.
Spray with an oil spray and season lightly with salt and pepper.
Heat a grill pan over medium heat and grill vegies for 2-3 minutes each side or until grill marks form and the vegetables are soft. The eggplant will need a little bit longer to soften.
Remove from the pan and allow to cool slightly.
Thinly slice each piece of eggplant or zucchini into long strips. You should get about 4 strips from the zucchini and 5 or 6 from the eggplant.
Put the eggplant and zucchini strips in a bowl with the spring onions, pinenuts, rocket, baby spinach, parsley and feta.
In a small jar, combine the extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice. Season the taste and shake to combine.
Pour about half of the dressing over the salad and toss well to combine. The feta should 'melt' and make a creamy dressing. Season to taste.

Serve the salad piled on to plates, topped with a few extra toasted pinenuts.

Enjoy!

Vegie Stacks

For this week's vegetarian meal, I thought I'd try and get a bit creative and do some thing different. It's so easy to get into a rut and just do the same old things week in and week out!

I saw some beautiful zucchini and eggplant at the fruit shop and decided that chargrilled vegies were going to be the way to go. With a pack of haloumi in the fridge and a few other bits and pieces, my mind was made up.

Vegie stacks are a bit 90's, but I figured that these would be pretty tasty none the less.  I layered the grilled zucchini, eggplant and haloumi and then baked it in the oven until the vegies were really soft. To give a nice crispy topping, I used grated parmesan, panko bread crumbs and some pine nuts, which browned up nicely in the oven.

The sauce I served it with was blended roasted red capsicum and hummus, but you could use any dip, pesto or tomato pasta sauce you had on hand. I didn't have time to make my own hummus, so don't worry if it's shop bought, rather than homemade!

This dish does take a little bit of preparation, but you could easily grill the vegies and make the hummus one night and then prepare the stacks the next. If you do, you might need to cook the stacks for a bit longer as the vegies will be cold, rather than warm.

Let's revive the 90's vegetarian line-up with something a bit more modern!

Grilled Vegie Stacks With Red Capsicum Hummus

1 medium zucchini

1 medium eggplant

200g packet of haloumi

1 Tbs grated parmesan cheese

1 Tbs panko bread crumbs

2 tsp pine nuts

Olive oil spray

Salt and pepper to taste

1 roasted red capsicum, skin removed

1/2 cup hummus

A handful of oregano leaves

Rocket to serve

Slice zucchini and eggplant lengthwise into 5mm thick slices.

Heat a chargrill pan on medium heat.

Spray vegie slices and grill for about 2 minutes on each side or until there are brown grill marks and the vegetables have softened. The eggplant may need slightly longer.

Repeat with all the slices and set aside.

Cut the haloumi into 5mm thick slices and pat dry with kitchen paper.

In the same grill pan on medium heat, grill haloumi for 1 minute each side or until grill marks appear.

Set aside.

To make the hummus, in a small blender, whiz up the roasted red capsicum with the hummus and a few oregano leaves. Season to taste and set aside.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees.

Line a baking tray with foil.

Build your stacks by layering eggplant, zucchini and haloumi with a spread of the hummus mixture on the vegies. I managed 3 stacks with 3 layers each.

Season the eggplant and zucchini well as you layer.

Sprinkle the panko crumbs and parmesan over the top.

Bake in the oven for 10 minutes or until the vegies start to soften and the crumbs brown.

Throw the pine nuts on the top and cook for another 5 minutes, or until the pine nuts have browned.

Remove the stacks from the oven before the pine nuts and crumbs burn!

To serve, place one stack on each plate, sprinkle with the oregano leaves and top with some rocket. Dollop the hummus mixture around the stack.

Enjoy!

Kale Salad

I've been a bit slow to get on the kale bandwagon, but now that I've started cooking with it, I love it! We first started with kale chips and have moved on to using it in place of spinach or other greens. This is my first attempt of using it in a salad.

After having carrots left over from making the soup earlier in the week, I decided that roasting the carrot to bring out that beautiful caramel flavour would complement the green kale perfectly. Adding some orange for sweetness and pine nuts for crunch, it was delicious.

The dressing used the juice from the orange, mixed with some oil, salt and pepper. It was mild and sweet. If you prefer a bit more zing, add some lemon juice or white wine vinegar, or use it instead of the orange.

To sate my salmon obsession, I served the salad with pan fried salmon fillets which had been sprinkled with sumac. A very simple way to serve such a beautiful fish.

Now that I've made my first kale salad, I think I'm going to have to get experimenting a little bit more. The sweet tartness of dried cranberries would also be great, as would fresh or dried apricots. Can't wait to have a bit more fun in the kitchen!

Kale Salad

1 carrot, peeled and cut into large chunks

A drizzle of olive oil

2 sticks of kale

1 orange

1 Tbs toasted pinenuts

1 spring onion, thinly sliced

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place carrot in a small roasting pan, drizzle with oil and toss to combine.

Roast for about 30 mins or until tender and starting to caramelise. Set aside to cool.

Cut the kale leaves away from the stalks and then tear into bite size pieces. Place in a bowl.

Boil a kettle full of water and pour over the kale leaves. Allow to sit for 1 minute, then drain and refresh under cold water. Set aside to cool and dry.

Cut the ends off the orange and then peel with a sharp knife to remove all the pith.

Segment the orange in to a bowl, taking care to reserve all the juices. Squeeze any remaining juice from the core and set aside.

In a serving bowl, combine the roasted carrot, kale, orange segments, toasted pine nuts and spring onion.

Measure the reserve orange juice and add an equal amount of extra virgin olive oil. Season to taste and whisk to combine.

Dress the salad with as much of the dressing as you feel it needs and toss to combine.

Enjoy.