TOMATO MINI TARTS FOR APÉRITIFS

 

These little bite sized tarts are so easy to make and work really well as nibbles for a crowd.

Scoring the lines in the pastry is the only fiddly part.

You can get 48 tarts from one sheet of puff pastry!

(Depending on the size of your tomatoes!)

There are endless variations you could do.

Ingredients

1 sheet of oblong ready made puff pastry

A handful of cherry tomatoes, a mix of colours makes the nibbles more interesting 

A handful of grated hard cheese, any type

1tblsp grated parmesan (optional)

1-2 tsp mustard (optional)

1tsp dried herbs (optional)

Method 

Remove the pastry from the fridge 10-15 minutes before using, otherwise it may crack when you unroll it.

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan.  Unroll the pastry and leave it on the paper it comes rolled in. 

Being guided by the size of your tomatoes, cut the pastry into even squares.  Then mark out border lines just within all sides of the squares but not cutting through.

Smear a little mustard onto each square if using and sprinkle with the grated cheese.

Cut your tomatoes into slices about the thickness of a £1 or 1€ coin and place one slice in each square.  

Lightly grind salt and pepper over the tarts and sprinkle over the parmesan and dried herbs if using.

Transfer the paper loaded with the tarts to a baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and cheese bubbling.

Makes up to 48 nibbles.

FOCHABERS GINGERBREAD

 

This cake was quite unlike anything I had made before.  It comes from a book by the Scottish food writer Sue Lawrence, Fochabers being a small town in the north of Scotland, not far from Inverness.  The recipe includes dried fruit, black treacle and beer.  (It also includes mixed peel, which I didn't have as all of mine had gone into the Christmas cake, so I added the same quantity of chopped walnuts instead.)

It started when Nick spotted a Nordic Ware tin that was less than half price in a sale in the fancy kitchenware shop in Loches.  Having bought me a lovely new tin I thought he deserved a cake and his favourite is a ginger cake so I looked through my cookbooks for a new recipe to try.

I remembered the rule not to overfill the tin with mixture and made just five little buns with the excess.  Soon after they came out of the oven, we had unexpected visitors, a friend and her two granddaughters, aged thirteen and four.

I pointed out that the cake was probably a very grown up cake with beer and treacle and that the children might not be too keen but I was wrong.  They both loved the little buns and there were barely a few crumbs left.

The cake had a firm texture and would be excellent for a picnic or to be handed round at a gathering as it didn’t fall into a mass of crumbs in the hand.  It was somehow not too sweet, not too gingery but satisfying.   We had the last two slices toasted and buttered.  It was not the sort of cake you might serve at a fancy tea party but definitely worth remembering.  It would be perfect for St Andrew's Day which is on 30th November.

Ingredients

170g unsalted butter, softened

170g light muscovado sugar (or light soft brown sugar)

4 rounded tablespoons black treacle

1 egg

340g plain flour

60g sultanas

60g currants

60g ground almonds

60g chopped mixed peel  

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tsp mixed spice

½ tsp ground cloves

1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

142ml (¼ pint) beer

Method

Preheat the oven to 150°C / 130°fan / gas mk 2.  Grease and base line a 20cm square tin or a 900g loaf tin.  If using a Bundt tin grease with cake release paste (see side bar for recipe).

Beat together the butter and sugar until light and creamy.  Heat the treacle gently in a small pan or microwave and add to the mixture.  Stir in the egg and combine well.

Mix in the flour, ground almonds, currants, sultanas, mixed peel and spices.  

Dissolve the bicarb in the beer then beat into the mixture.

Spoon the mixture into the tin, level the top and bake for 75-90 minutes until it passes the skewer test.  (The deeper tin will take the longest time.)

Remove the tin to a wire rack and leave the cake to cool in the tin before turning out.  If using a Bundt tin, turn out after 15-20 minutes.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

CLEMEMTINE AND ALMOND CAKE

This is one of those cakes that I had the urge to make the minute I spotted the recipe which was in Dom's blog here.  I had made something similar before to a Michel Roux recipe which was a lovely dessert cake (see here) but this one sounded easier.  So, with a number of clementines in the fruit bowl I had all the ingredients needed and decided to give it a go.

Dom mentioned that it's originally a Nigella Lawson recipe so I googled it and it's from her book "How to Eat".  The only tricky bit is that the clementines should be boiled for one and a half hours.  Ah, I thought, I don’t have time for that…..I wonder if there’s another way.  

Sure enough, on Nigella's website (see here) it says that you can microwave them instead, so that’s what I did.  Nigella recommends cooking them in a covered dish with a vent in the lid so I used my lovely old Pearsons of Chesterfield stewpot.

This is a fabulous cake.  Beautifully moist with flecks of the clementine zest running through it and of course it’s gluten free.  It's very easy to make, keeps well, freezes well and makes a delicious dessert.

Ingredients

375g clementines

250g ground almonds

225g caster sugar

6 large eggs, lightly beaten

1tsp baking powder

Method 

Preheat the oven to 19°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Butter and line the base of a 20cm springform tin.

Put the clementines into a dish with a lid that has a steam vent.  Add a little water and microwave on high , 800-900W, for 8-10 minutes, turning half way through until soft. Drain and allow to cool while preparing the other ingredients.

Cut each clementine in half and remove the stalk ends and any pips.  The easiest way to do this is to flatten out the halves of fruit and dig out the pips.

Put them all into a food processor and blitz briefly to a rough pulp.  Add all the other ingredients and process until smooth.

Transfer the mixture to the tin, level the top and tap on the worktop to dispel any trapped air.

Bake for 40 minutes until the cake passes the skewer test, covering loosely with foil after 20 minutes to prevent the top from scorching.

Remove from the oven and sit the tin on a rack until the cake is cool.

Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.

BEAN SOUP (soup maker recipe)

This was a very tasty soup.

At this time of year I have a clear out of our food cupboards.  At the back of a cupboard I found this bag of dried white haricot beans.  They were just past their sell by so it was time to use them up!  The next day I looked in my recipe books for things to do with beans and came up with bean soup, perfect for the freezing cold weather we were having last week.

What I hadn't bargained for was that the dried beans had to be soaked overnight before they could be cooked.  I should have realised this as it's exactly what we now do with our mushy peas so I wrote it on the pack of beans to remind me!  (I have never seen mushy peas for sale in France and instead of bringing tins of them from the UK I bring packs of dried marrowfat peas which I then cook and freeze in portions.)

A rummage at the back of the pantry shelves turned up a tin of pre cooked beans so we could still have the soup. 

Another thing I found in the cupboard was a pack of half baked demi baguettes that were just at their sell by date.  These are very handy to have in stock for when you want nice crusty bread and the boulangerie is shut or the baguette machine in the village has sold out.  I always make sure we have some in stock.  They’re not quite as delicious as a fresh baguette but better than none at all!

The soup was cooked in the soup maker on the "chunky" function which means it's all boiled up but not blended.  Consequently I chopped the veg smaller than usual as that's the size the chunks were going to be in the finished soup.  As the blender function is not used you could simply cook the soup in a saucepan!

It was delicious, definitely a keeper and Nick declared it one of the best soups I had ever made.  It was just the job for a chilly day when we didn’t want to head to the shops on slippery roads.

Ingredients

1 400g tin chopped tomatoes

1 400g tin haricots blancs or cannellini beans, drained and well rinsed

1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into small dice

2 sticks celery, washed and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 vegetable stock pot

1 tsp mixed herbs

Method 

Put all the ingredients into the soup maker with enough water to fill to the top line.  Give it all a good stir.  (Or put it all into a large saucepan with a litre of water and bring to the boil gently, cover and cook for 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the carrots are tender.)

Cook on the chunky setting.

If the carrots are still slightly firm, stir the soup and give it another few minutes on "chunky".

Serve with warm, crusty baguette.

Makes 4 generous servings.

MICROWAVED POACHED EGGS

I first wrote about how to poach an egg here.  It's the method I use when I have more than one egg to cook and it works well every time as long as the eggs are quite fresh.  If they are not so fresh the whites tend to spread a bit but they still taste good!

A perfectly cooked microwaved poached egg.

Then I spotted on the internet a way to do them in the microwave, which is very handy and quick if I just want to poach one egg for myself.  There were various methods involving mugs, cups, ramekins and other dishes, water on top, water underneath, and I had mixed results including exploded egg all over the inside of the machine!

In the end I arrived at this method and came to the conclusion that the shape of the dish has a lot to do with the success. 

My best results came from using a rather conical shaped dish.

I acquired a set of these little Pyrex dishes (not actually Pyrex but ovenproof anyway) in order to bake a batch of Queen of Puddings (see here) which were a great hit.  The worst results (exploding eggs) seemed to happen when I used a straight sided mug or ramekin.

I also found that these small jars work well as they are about the right size.  They are Weck jars and they are sold in France with paté or rillettes in them.  They have a rubber seal rather like a Kilner jar seal and being oven proof are very useful for various things.  (The lids also make good wine bottle coasters.)

As you can see, they also have a slightly conical shape.

Another rather weird thing I discovered is that the rate of success improved if I put water on top of the egg rather than into the dish before dropping the egg in!

Obviously I have no idea if there is any sensible scientific reasoning behind any of this but as it's now quite a while since I had a less than perfect poached egg using this method I decided to risk sharing it!  I dare say any conical shaped container would work as long as it's the right sort of size.

I recently discovered the quick function button on my microwave too!  One press gives it thirty seconds at 800w, two presses sixty seconds and so on.  This is very handy for cooking the egg just right!  I give it two presses but open the door and have a look when there are still ten to fifteen seconds left on the clock.  If it's not done it goes back in for five seconds more.

Finally, remember to get your toast on first as it takes longer to do than the egg and you want it to be ready on the plate when the egg is nice and hot.

Method

Drop your egg into a smallish slightly conical shaped dish, mug or pot.  Very fresh eggs definitely work best.

Put about 1 tablespoon of cold water on top.

Microwave on high (800w) for 40-55 seconds.  The time required depends on the size of your egg so give it 40 seconds and if the white is still uncooked put it back in for 5 second bursts.  It only takes 5 seconds too long for the yolk to be solid not runny.  Another extra burst may result in your egg exploding all over the inside of your microwave!

Tip the egg into a slotted spoon to drain off the water and slide it onto your toast.  

Poached egg on toast for one!

PIGS IN BLANKETS CASSOULET

This was one of the recipes in Mary Berry's Christmas programme last year.  It looked so good that we bought extra pigs in blankets in order to make it.  You can see the recipe here.

We actually adapted it to a quick version that just serves two people.

In browning the PIBs the blankets (bacon) came off - the sausages became unwrapped but that was not a bad thing!  In fact it gave me the idea that the cassoulet would be just as good another time made with chipolatas and lardons! 

It was utterly delicious, perfect for a Friday night supper (or any night of the week!).  Because it contains a whole tin of beans we just had ours with extra veg; carrots and broccoli.  I used my lovely small old Cousances cast iron casserole dish, a present from my Aunty Vera in the 80’s.  She had bought it during the early trend for cast iron pots and pans but couldn’t get on with it, preferring her 1970’s Pyrex dish instead - the white one with the orange flower pattern.  I'm sure many of us remember those and I dare say some of you will still be using one!

We obviously used ready made uncooked PIBs but it would be perfect for cooked leftovers, just putting them in last thing with the beans once the sauce got going.  The advantage there is that they would probably stay in one piece!

Ingredients 

1 tblsp sunflower oil 

10 pigs in blankets (or the whole pack of 12!)*

2 small shallots, peeled and chopped

1 stick of celery, washed and sliced

2 small cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed or grated

1 400g can of chopped tomatoes 

1 400g can of haricots verts or other white beans eg butter beans, cannellini beans, chick peas, drained and rinsed

a splash of white wine (or water) used to rinse the empty tomato tin

1 tsp dried parsley or sage

1 tsp Dijon mustard (or just a spot of English mustard)

1 vegetable Oxo cube or any stock cube or stock pot

1 tsp chicken gravy granules if needed

1/2 tsp sugar if needed

Method 

Heat the oil in a heat proof (cast iron) casserole dish or sauté pan.  Add the shallots, garlic and PIBs and fry gently, stirring, to colour them.  Don’t worry if the bacon unwraps itself from the sausages!

Stir in the tomatoes, beans, and herbs, crumble in the stock cube and bring to the boil.  Add the wine and simmer gently uncovered for about 10 minutes until the sausages are cooked through. *this is the stage where you could add cooked leftover PIBs.

Season and taste the cassoulet.  Add the sugar if the tomatoes seem a bit sharp.  Add the mustard and stir in the gravy granules to thicken the sauce if it’s a bit thin.

Serve with any extra veg you like.

Serves 2.

You might also like these other sausage dishes:

Italian sausage and bean stew

Sausage and lentil stew

Sausage traybake

Sausage and potato quiche which could also be adapted to use leftover PIBs.

A BAKER'S DOZEN - SOME FAVOURITE RECIPES FROM 2025 and time for a cabinet reshuffle.

 

The Ecclefechan tart was amazing.

For some time I have wondered where I am going with this blog.  There is great enjoyment writing it but the conclusion is that it is mostly written for myself, as a record of recipes that turned out really well and I refer to it regularly.  I am always thrilled to get comments and am hugely chuffed that occasionally other people find it useful too. 

Over the winter I will be doing a bit of pruning and weed out the posts that were not so good.  It shouldn't be hard to tell which ones to leave in and which ones to chuck out as the pageview stats and comments help with that.

While the blog is going through a cabinet reshuffle there may be times when it is offline but it is not going away completely.  There are several new posts waiting to be completed already.

My very first Simnel cake ever was a huge success.

The lamb tagine with dates was delicious.

I've made the tomato and red pepper soup many times.

I now always make my sausage rolls like this.

A lucky find at the local tip inspired these delicious little tarts!

This very old fashioned dessert, rhubarb fool, was a great hit.

I can't wait for warmer weather to make gazpacho soup again.

These salmon kebabs made a regular appearance at summer bbqs.

The tomato sauce made from our glut of tomatoes has come in very handy.

This gluten free lemon drizzle cake was a revelation.

The plum and almond cake was one of those recipes I was simply compelled to make.

The pumpkin and mincemeat cake had all the sceptics converted.