Serves 12
A mouth watering tart for lunch or light dinner, this has all the right ingredients to bring to life the colours and smells of a long forgotten summer. This is a very easy tart to make and even easier to polish off! Use a good brand of olive oil and olive p?t? with capers. It makes a lot of difference.
For the pastry:
200g self-raising flour
2tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
100ml orange juice
100ml oil
For the topping:
150g green beans
200g cherry tomatoes
20g pitted black Greek olives
50g olive p?t?
3 small cloves garlic
Good quality extra – virgin olive oil
l Steam green beans for about seven minutes or until tender and then remove the lid of the saucepan.
l Preheat oven to 160°C. Put all pastry ingredients in a mixer and beat until combined.
l Grease a shallow 27cm fluted pan and roll out your pastry on a floured surface to cover the bottom and sides of tin.
l Spread the olive p?t? over the pastry and then scatter the green beans, the halved cherry tomatoes and black olives over the top. Slice the garlic cloves and scatter over the top. Drizzle the extra-virgin olive oil over the vegetables and bake for about 30 minutes or until cooked depending on your cooker. Allow to cool before turning out onto a serving plate.
Date and Walnut Pie
Serves 12
This delicious pie contains no sugar, eggs or dairy products, so it’s the perfect solution for those who have special dietary needs. The crunchiness comes from the use of cornmeal in the pastry. You can prepare ahead or freeze the pie. Serve this cold or warm with ice cream or strained yoghurt with honey.
For the pastry:
225g self-raising flour
250g cornmeal
1 tsp ground cloves
150g spry – vegetable fat
125ml organic soya milk
1/3 cup oil
For the filling:
500g dates – pitted and chopped
100g walnuts – roughly broken by hand
Zest and juice of one lemon
200ml water
100ml brandy
l Sift the flour, cornmeal and ground cloves into the bowl of your food mixer. Add the vegetable fat/shortening and beat until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. With the mixer still running, pour in the milk and oil and let it form a soft ball. If the pastry looks hard, add some more milk and beat again. Refrigerate for 20 minutes.
l Put all the filling ingredients (except the walnuts) into a saucepan and heat on low. Keep stirring until the mixture binds together and the dates have broken down – this should take about ten minutes. Let it cool down and then fold in the walnuts.
l Switch on the oven to 160°C. Oil a 27cm round loose bottom tart tin. Roll half of the pastry out onto a floured surface and press it to the bottom and sides of the tin. Spread the filling evenly and cover with the rolled out remaining pastry.
l Cut off any excess pastry and use the tip of a pointed knife to seal the edges of the pie by overlapping the bottom and top. Decorate the pie with the left over pastry. Bake for about 35 minutes. Remove from tin when cold.
CAROB CAKE
Serves 20
Pistachio nuts, sesame seeds and carob syrup make a heavenly combination for a cake! It’s moist, yet dry enough to take away on a trip. The absence of eggs and dairy products makes it ideal if you are fasting or have special dietary needs.
640g self-raising flour
170g icing sugar
2 tsp baking powder
100 + 50g pistachios roughly broken
200ml oil
500ml orange juice
250ml carob syrup, organic if possible
Sesame seeds
l Preheat oven to 170°C. Sift all the dry ingredients into a clean bowl. Add the oil, orange juice and carob syrup and beat until well combined.
l Empty half the cake mixture into an oiled 2 litre ring tin. Scatter 100g of the nuts over the cake mixture. Using a spatula empty the rest of the cake mixture into the tin and then scatter the rest of the pistachio nuts and sesame seeds over the top.
l Bake until it is ready, which should take approximately 30 to 40 minutes. Once cooked let it cool a little. For those not fasting, serve it warm with vanilla ice cream or natural yogurt.
