Mediterranean tart

Ingredients Pastry: 4oz plain flour, 2oz butter Filling: 4 eggs, 75g marscapone, 75g sun dried tomatoes, 75g artichokes, 3 bell peppers, 1 tsp dried oregano, 1 tsp dried basil.

Serves: 4 Preparation: 1 hour (plus pastry chilling)

I adore tarts. Crammed with vegetables and set in a creamy egg filling with melt in the mouth pastry, they are a meal in themselves or great with salad. This tastes of pure sunshine and is super quick to prepare.

1) To make the shortcrust pastry, cut the butter into small cubes and drop along with the flour into a food processor until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Drip in 2-3 tablespoons of cold water until the mixture quickly forms a ball. Wrap this in clingfilm and put in the fridge for 15 minutes. Once chilled, roll out and press firmly into a buttered pastry case. Bake blind for 10 minutes and set aside to cool.

2) Whisk the eggs and marscapone together, then stir in the oregano and basil.

3) This tart can be made quickly by using sun dried tomatoes and artichokes from a jar, drained well to remove the oil, but I would recommend roasting the peppers yourself as the longer they are marinated, the less sunshine sweetness they tend to have. Slicing around the core to remove the seeds, I roast these for 15-20 minutes and then peel off the blackened skin. 

4) Layer the vegetables in the tart case and pour over the egg and marscapone mix, then bake in a pre-heated oven at gas mark 5 for 30-40 minutes. The tart should be solid, rather than wobbly in the centre with a golden surface just beginning to form.

5) Serve hot or cold.

Orzotto: roast vegetable & goji berry

Ingredients 1 cup pearl barley, 1 pint vegetable stock, 3 sun dried tomatoes, 1 bell pepper, 1 courgette, 1/4 cup goji berries, rosemary, thyme, butter, white onion.

Serves: 2 Preparation: 1 hour

All risottos (no matter what the ingredients) can be made in 3 simple stages. The first is called tostatura - coating the rice in fat, the second involves cooking off some alcohol and the third involves releasing the starch from the rice one ladle of stock at a time. Using spelt or pearl barley as an alternative to rice makes a wonderful change to the Italian classic but pearl barley, unlike spelt and rice can be left to cook with the whole pint of stock making it less high-maintenance to cook. This flavour-packed combination of roast courgettes, peppers, sun-dried tomatoes and juicy goji berries is perfect to fight Winter lurgy.

1) Dice the bell pepper and courgette and roast in a little olive oil for 15 minutes in a covered dish. Dice the sun-dried tomatoes and add them along with the goji berries to the roasting dish to allow them to rehydrate in the roasting juices.

2) Finely dice the white onion and sautee until soft in a little butter. Season to taste with rosemary and thyme and add the pearl barley. Stir through until coated in fat, then add the roast vegetables and vegetable stock.

3) Leave to simmer with the lid on for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally until the stock has almost all been absorbed, leaving a wonderful silky, fragrant sauce.

Spinach, feta, olive & sun-dried tomato bean burgers

Ingredients 400g spinach, 1 potato, sun dried tomatoes, olives, feta, haricot beans, old bread, pistachios, sesame seeds, 1 egg.

Serves: 4 preparation: 30 minutes


This is one of my favourite recent recipes and I can see myself making these time and time again. The burgers are like an explosion of flavour - olive BAM, tomato BAM, feta BAM but there's the silky smooth potato and spinach to balance it out - the beans add a great texture and the crispy, nutty crust is fabulous.


1) Peel and dice the potato, then boil in hot, salted water until soft. Drain, mash and set aside to cool.



2) Drain the can of beans and slice them in half. This sounds laborous but it needn't be - just line them up and slice multiple beans at the same time! stir into the mashed potato.


3) Blitz the spinach in a blender and stir into the bean and potato mixture.


4) Dice the feta, tomatoes and olives and stir into the mixture.


5) Blitz your bread in a blender until fine breadcrumbs are formed. Crush a handful of pistachios in a blender and stir through the bread with some sesame seeds.


6) Whisk the egg and roll the patty into it before rolling it through the breadcrumbs, then bake in the oven for 10 minutes until the breadcrumbs are golden brown.

Sun dried tomato & roast vegetable conchiglie

Ingredients    Sun dried tomatoes, tomato passata, 4 garlic cloves, aubergine, courgette, parmigiano, conchiglie pasta

1) Slice the aubergine into thick slices and rest in a colander. Sprinkle with salt to draw out the bitter juices. After 20 minutes, rinse off the juice and pat dry. 


2) Cut the aubergine into chunks and roast in the oven along with some sliced and quartered chunks of courgette. If your sun dried tomatoes are marinated with oil - use some of the oil to drizzle on the vegetables before roasting.


3) Using the same oil - add some into a pan and crush 4 cloves of white garlic into it. It has a wonderfully rich flavour but keep the heat low as this type of oil will burn very easily. Don't use the oil if it contains vinegar or herbs or spices as these flavours will likely burn too and leave you with a bitter mess!
Add the tomato passata and stir through.


4) Finely slice the sun dried tomatoes and add to the pan, along with the roasted vegetables. You shouldn't need to season further due to the intensity of the sun dried tomatoes (and bear in mind this will be topped with parmeggian too!) but this is entirely to taste.


5) Boil the conchiglie for 10-15 minutes in boiling salted water. Strain the pasta and stir it into the sauce, spinkle with shaved parmeggian and serve.



If you can't bear the thought of eating a vegetarian dish, why not stir through some parma ham?

Tapenade stuffed aubergine

Ingredients   Kamalata olives, sun dried tomatoes,  capers, olive oil, aubergine, parmigiano

Following on from my Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade - this is a great way to use up leftovers!


1) Finely slice an aubergine and rest the slices in a sieve before sprinkling with salt. This will draw out the bitter liquid - rinse them after 15 minutes and pat dry.


2) Spread the aubergine with tapenade and layer with another slice of aubergine. Bake in the oven for 10 minutes before topping with parmeggian. Bake for a further 5-10 minutes and serve.

Olive & sun dried tomato lavash

Ingredients   Plain flour, butter, 1 egg white, sugar, salt, Kamalata olives, sun dried tomatoes, capers, olive oil, spinach, mozarella

Following on from my Sun Dried Tomato Tapenade - this is a great way to use up leftovers!

1) To make the lavash dough stir by hand 300g flour, sugar and salt. Add 150ml warm water and 30g melted butter, followed by 1 whisked egg white.


2) Kneed the dough for 5 minutes until smooth and rest in a lightly oiled bowl for an hour.


3) Separate the dough into 8 - 10 smaller balls and roll out thinly on a floured surface and transfer to a pizza stone/baking tray


4) Spread the tapenade onto the dough and top with small chunks of mozarella.


5) Bake in the oven for 5 minutes, add a handful of spinach and fold in half


6) Return to the oven for a final 5 minutes and serve

Sun dried tomato tapenade

Ingredients   Kamalata olives, sun dried tomatoes, capers, olive oil

Tapenade is traditionally made with olives, pickled capers and anchovies. Personally I do not like fish so I skip the anchovies and replace the strong, salty flavour with sun dried tomato which works equally as well.


1) Pit the olives (for the love of Bowie don't buy pre-pitted olives, especially from a jar. They have no flavour and the consistency of rubber) and remove the stalks of the capers.


2) Add into a blender along with the tomatoes and capers. I mix 3 parts olives to 1 part tomatoes and capers but this should be entirely to taste.


I served this with La Brea olive loaf but watch out for a future recipe using this tapenade!