Monday 3 October 2011

Cheeze'n'Pepper Tart with Basil Pesto v Ketchup Swamp

We were out today going visiting and were in a hurry for some food when we got home even though we had each gobbled up a pack of Organix Spicy Star snacks in the car on the way home...good mummy points are awarded for having packs of these in your handbag when your children have inadvertently missed a meal...
So we needed something quick and also something that features on Pony's miniscule list of Things That Are Good to Eat!....Cheeze and Pepper Tart with Basil and Garlic Pesto..
There are still Issues with it as Pony and Mouse don't want the pesto and Nobody under 10 wants the pepper but it is still nice that we are eating approximately the same and doesn't require a completely different meal prepared for the smalls...
We rarely make our own puff pastry since Jus Rol puff pastry is vegan (someone told us their croissants are too but I've never found them in the shops....still looking though!).
I gave the children the leftover pastry - they always do far more creative things with the pastry scraps we give them than we are doing with the rest of it! They plunder the kitchen cupboards for Bakin' Bits, Vegan Parmesan, thyme, oregano, smoked paprika, onion granules, garlic powder, yeast flakes and their beloved ketchup! They make Volcanoes out of it, that erupt with ketchup lava and Swiss Rolls with cheeze and herbs. Mouse planned a Ketchup Swamp but being the virtuoso that he is, changed his recipe and filled the swamp with yeasties instead, explaining that we didn't have enough ketchup to make a ketchup swamp since we only had two bottles....
 So anyway back to the Cheeze Tart: we just roll the pastry out and then spread a layer of grated cheese mixed with soya milk and black pepper across it. You can just use melting Cheezley but we were feeding 5 people and only seemed to have bought one block of cheeze for it so grating it and mixing it with s'milk makes it go further.
I cut strips of pepper and laid it across them (well, ONE of them, since the children were having cheeze'n'cheeze tart) and then it goes into a hot oven until the cheeze mixture is a golden brown.
While it was cooking I whizzed up garlic, olive oil, basil (WE LOVE BASIL!!!)  and lemon juice with a stick blender and drizzled it over the tarts when they came out of the oven.
The tart (with and without pepper and with and without the basil sauce!) was well-received but perhaps a bit lacking in adventure compared to the 'erupting volcano cake' (pie) which Pony made, Fin's Savoury Hot Cross Pastry Bun, and Mouse's flavourful Swamp...!

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