a little bit savoury | a whole lot sweet
So when I looked up on the very top shelf of my pantry recently, which I don’t often see given my short stature, I discovered there were four boxes of Oreo cookies up there, patiently waiting to be turned into something delicious (not that they aren’t delicious eaten straight from the packet).
With some friends coming over to visit, I was in the mood to make something chocolate so it was the perfect opportunity to whip up this very simple, four ingredient, No Bake Oreo Chocolate Tart.
About a year ago I pinned one of the most awesome looking vegetable tarts I have ever seen to my Pinterest board Vegetarian and Vegan Delights . Rather than the veggies being laid flat in the tart base, the slices were arranged in a spiral perpendicular to the base and the result looked amazing.
My version was not quite as amazing looking as the original Vegetable Arty Tart from Vicky’s blog Statsy , but it certainly was very tasty and I can’t wait to try this again with some other vegetable and filling combinations.
Before I met my husband I had never eaten a Portuguese Tart. There is a woman at our local farmers market who sells different pastries, including these little beauties and he brought one home for me to try. Needless to say I absolutely loved it.
Jamie Oliver has a recipe for Quick Portuguese Tarts in his 30 Minute Meals cook book which we have made a couple of time that uses créme fraîche rather than making a custard and the hubby and I have made those a couple of times as they’re quite delicious. After a recent order of my Oreo Cookies and Cream Cupcakes, I had some leftover egg yolks so I thought I would make a more traditional Portuguese Tarts using a recipe from Bill Grainger.
Another man who is responsible for a lot of cooking in our house is Jamie Oliver. You may have heard of him, he is the chap from England who has a few cooking shows, some cook books (a copy of each of them resides on our bookshelf), a couple of restaurants and does some wonderful things through his foundation.
In his Jamie’s Great Britain series, Jamie called into a butcher who makes Melton Mowbray Pork Pies. You know the hubby’s eyes lit up as soon as this came on, and then he searched the interweb for a recipe to make his own.
Because I couldn’t choose which tart to make for Easter lunch dessert, I obviously had to make both the Lemon Tart and the Exploding Chocolate Gateaux as the gateaux looked too divine to wait for another occasion.
Because I had been living under a rock it seemed, I didn’t realise that Heston Blumenthal’s latest series How to Cook Like Heston was showing on SBS until I stumble across the second episode, “Eggs”, one Thursday night.
I was especially interested in his technique for cooking poached eggs, as it is something I have difficulty with, but then came the recipe for the lemon tart which obviously I HAD to cook as soon as possible.
