Friday 26 October 2012

The World's Easiet Tomato Tart

If you read my husband's blog, Marks Veg Plot, you will know that we've had a fine crop of tomatoes this year, and we ALWAYS have a fine crop of basil. We make batches of pesto with the basil, freezing it in ice cube trays, so we can defrost one or two cubes as needed. This tart needs two or three of those cubes from the freezer, but pesto from a jar would work if you have no home made, a sheet of ready-rolled bought puff pastry (also from the freezer, in my case), a little Parmesan or any other hard cheese and as many tomatoes as you happen to have lying around.

Heat the oven to about 200 degrees Celsius (or  whatever it recommends on your pack of pastry). Line  a baking tray with non-stick paper, then unroll  the defrosted pastry directly onto it. Cut into it to a depth of about halfway down all around, about 3cm from the edge, to form an inner rectangle. Prick the inner area all over with a fork and then spread with the pesto, making sure none goes onto the border.

Slice your tomatoes, guesstimating how thick they need to be in order to cover the inner area with them - the more you have, the thicker you can afford to have them, and arrange them on top of the pesto, again not going over the border. Then grate a little cheese over the whole thing.


At this point you can get all fancy with the border, scoring fancy patterns into it, egg washing it, whatever floats your boat, only then it isn't the World's easiest any more, is it? And even the keenest cooks have lazy days.

Finally stick it in the oven until the border is puffed up and golden, by which time the tomatoes will be cooked.


And there you are - minimum effort,  maximum taste. This really ought to serve 4, but there are only two of us and there has never yet been anything left for next day's lunch, although I would imagine it is perfectly delicious  cold if it is ever given the chance.

I'm linking this to Food on Friday where this week's challenge is tomatoes

2 comments:

Top Cuisine avec Lavi said...

Wow, looks amazing! Love your blog, and i am glad that i found him!

Carole said...

Jane, thank you very much for linking in - and a thank you, too for following Carole's Chatter (by deduction I worked out that your blogger profile is called Grapevine??). I am now following your lovely blog as well. Have a great week.

Ps If you would like email reminders of future Food on Fridays, just pop by and comment and include your email - I won't publish it - and the reminder will be by bcc so it will remain private