Pea, Mint & Goats' Cheese Tart

It seems I have a thing for baking tarts. You'd think I didn't eat anything else. Out of 14 posts, four of them are tarts but hey, they taste good and I wanted to makes something springlike that I could take along to a picnic at the weekend. I love, love, love the minty pea layer and what could be better than topping it off with goats' cheese? My slicing and photography skills don't show it off to it's best but I was totally taken in by how pretty it looks when you cut into it. A lovely bright green stripe topped off with the goats' cheese loveliness. It went down swell and was perfect spring picnic fare. And if you need another reason to give it a go then think of how much your wallet will love you. Frozen peas are as purse friendly as it gets and when your tart needs to be half filled with them then you're onto a money saving winner. Just don't tell your friends how little you spent on them or how easy it was to make. Just revel in the compliments.

Make it.

Leek & Potato Soup

This is a great soup. This is an even better soup for when you think that spring has arrived, leave the house in your finest spring wear only to be attacked by the rain gods on the way home. In such a situation, something hot, comforting and insanely delicious is needed to get you out of that bad mood you're in and to get some warm blood pumping through your veins once again. This, for me was perfect and I can most definitely recommend this bowl of goodness with a steaming hot cup of tea. With milk. Because I'm English. Oh, and why not throw a blanket in the mix too with season three of Dexter.

Although I've eaten it a lot, I've never actually made leek and potato soup before but I'll definitely be doing this one again. In fact I'm hoping for a few more rainy days as an excuse. Who knew that these two ingredients could be so tasty. The recipe only uses milk and stock but I had a bit of cream to use up so threw that in too. Definitely not a bad thing. If you've never had this before, or have never tried your hand at making it yourself, then all I can say is do it. It'll make you very happy. And warm.

A Carrot Cake Bake Off

I get a little bit over excited sometimes and want to make everything in sight. This happened to me this week when I wanted to make a carrot cake. My head was in tatters. There were so many options and not enough people to feed excess cakes supplies to. I haven't got a 'go to' carrot cake recipe and after looking through my books I came across far too many to choose from. I mean really, how am I supposed to know which one is best if I don't make them all? What if there's a better one out there that I don't know about? Well, in my (slightly crazy) mind there was only one thing for it...yup I made them all.

I'm not crazy enough to make them all full sized so I narrowed it down to three recipes and made a three layer cake with each layer being a different carrot cake recipe. All of them used three eggs so I could just use one egg for each recipe and divide everything else accordingly. Super simple. This is definitely the way to go if you want to try out lots of recipe to find the best one.

Chorizo, Chickpea & Bean Stew

We've been stuck in a food rut. And yes, whilst eating meat, potato and veg in it's various guises is always good, enough was enough. We weren't quite ready to dust off the salad servers but with a whole two days of almost springlike weather our senses were awakened and we were craving new flavours. Goodness was needed and lots of it, something less heavy and definitely no stodge! A kind of transitional meal to awaken us from the depths of winter and get us ready for spring.

And oh by jove, this soupy stew ticked all the right boxes. Delicious Spanish chorizo mixed with vegetables and beans with a bit of a kick. How could you not feel good after that? It's still warming and comforting so I wouldn't exactly call it light but it sure hit the spot. It's a great value little dish but if I can say one thing it would be to buy the best quality chorizo that you can afford. It really will make the dish.

Cheese & Pickle Burgers

Cheese & Pickle makes for a pretty formidable partnership. Fact. 
The two just kinda go hand in hand don't they?

Sometimes, living in a foreign country, you get a bit homesick and you just want to eat food that reminds you of home. Nothing fancy, just something takes you back for a moment and for me that something is cheese and pickle. What could be more British and comforting than that? And not fancy schmancy pickle. Oh no, I'm talking about the good old Branston variety. And imagine how excited I was when I found some in one of the supermarkets here! OK, so it was a 10 mile round trip on my bike to get my hands on it but I'd say that it was a small price to pay to have the pickle in my life once again. And after all that exercise I definitely had to do something awesome with it.

No-Bake Chocolate Tart and a Rescue Mission

I learned some lessons this week...

lesson one...don't use your beautiful homemade butter biscuits as the biscuit base for your chocolate tart. Why? Well this is what happens...it's not looking good is it? 

I guess all the butter in the biscuits combined with the butter I used to bind the crumbs was a bit too much. As you can see, what I ended up with was a sorry mess of crumbs swimming in a sea of butter. And so rescue mission number one began and back to the shops it was for some old faithful digestives and another block of butter.

Goats Cheese and Roast Tomato Tart

Don't you hate it when you get a bill from the tax man demanding money? Well, that's what happened to me this week.  Not my favourite way to start a week.

So, to try and make my bank balance feel a little better about itself I've been tight with everything else. The only problem is that my default place to go when I'm feeling stressed or down is kitchen which usually involves spending money. And so the challenge began...to make a meal from what we had lying about in the fridge. Easier said than done when your fridge looks like it's just been raided by the food police.

I had butter, eggs, tomatoes and goat's cheese. Mmm, what to do? My little brain was beginning to steam when...brainwave! In times like these, make a tart! Tarts or quiches are a great way of using up all those odd bits in the fridge that are just asking to be eaten but you don't know what to do with. (OK, I admit that I had to go and pick up some cream, but at 57 cents, I could just raid the copper jar). All I do is rustle up a bit of short crust pastry, pop whatever I have lying around in the case, top it up with a mix of eggs and cream, bung it in the oven and bob's your uncle, 30 minutes later you've got a tasty dinner out of what you'd otherwise written off.

Clotted Cream...oh and Pear & Almond Tart

Good news: We found clotted cream in our supermarket here in the Netherlands.

Bad news: It cost €3.87.

Good news: At that price it's a good way to keep the waistline in check.

When life gives you clotted cream, the rule is you've gotta eat it. Our hands had reached for the little pot of goodness like they were someone else's and we had paid and were out the door before we knew what had happened.

And when you've got a whole lotta cream waiting to be devoured, then the rule is that you've got to make a delicious little something to put it on. This is where this little gem of a tart comes in. I thought that it was going to be the bridesmaid with the cream taking centre stage as the bride but I shouldn't have judged you so soon...sorry. Please forgive me.

'Grown up' Mac and Cheese

I have a bit of a problem when it comes to watching foody TV shows. As in I watch them all...even if they're bad. Sometimes though, one comes along that you don't have particularly high expectations of and it rocks! It's just a shame that it finished this week...

This recipe comes courtesy of the Lorraine Pascale's 'Baking Made Easy'. Pretty much everything this girl whips up makes me want to get the scales out, put the pinny on get cracking. She makes everything look so effortless and she convinces you think that, yes, I can make that three tier look like it's just walked out of a fancy, schmancy cake shop. Lorraine used to be a top model, working with the likes of Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell in the nineties. But, after deciding that she wanted to do something more worthwhile, she found cooking. She now has her own bakery in Covent Garden, London selling celebration cakes. I'm not jealous at all...not in the slightest. Yes, I'm lying.

So now for the star of the show...trust me, this is good.