Firstly, yes, I am still alive and I can only offer my sincere apologies for the extended delay since my last post. I’ve not been in very good health and have had a spell in hospital.
The other day a couple of things happened that made me decide to do this post. My neighbour and farmer arrived with a couple of sacks of tomatoes, potatoes and onions, all of which he had grown on the field I own. When I first moved here, the land I bought included a couple of agricultural fields. I’m no farmer, and the two fields together were not enough to do much with so I spoke to my neighbour and we agreed he would manage them on my behalf. He grows a few kitchen vegetables, wheat and straw or hay and I pay him for managing them with the produce. In fact these days, we just split the produce between us, lovely warm produce straight from the field or bails of straw to add to my own kitchen garden
After he had gone another friend invited me for supper and I decided I could use the fresh produce to make a tart. I’m afraid I didn’t measure anything but I’ll tell you what I did.
First I blind baked a pastry tart shell, about 30cms by 20cms (12” x 8”) I used a rectangular pie dish and lined it with greaseproof paper.
Next I took about three of the medium onions and sliced them and to the sliced onion I added about 5 cloves of garlic also sliced. I fried the mixture, adding a touch of salt and black pepper until the onions started to caramelise. Then I put that dish aside.
To assemble the tart, I started by layering about half of the blanched potato in the bottom. The potato was a bit wet still so I added just a dessert spoonful of rice under the potato to soak up any juices.
On top of the potato I layered tomato, sliced fairly thickly. Again seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper.
Next, another layer of potato.
Then a layer of the fried onions and garlic before putting the final layer of tomatoes on the top.
I scattered some fresh basil leaves over the dish and returned it to the oven to bake at about 180C (350F) for 20 mins
