With the barbarians now being vegetarian, I often end up cooking two meals or leaving them to fend for themselves. However, as they are barbarians, this often means they eat very few proper vegetables! On Monday we all eat meat free, and I get to fill them full of vegetables.
Using ready made pastry is a cooking cheat I can fully support. Gluten free pastry is a pain and doesn’t have the elasticity of pastry made with wheat flour but there are some fantastic ready made gluten free pastries out there. Use them, you’ll save yourself so much stress.
I saw a picture of this pretty tart some years ago and it has been on my list of things to make for ages. It looks lovely but is actually very easy, if a little fiddly. Perfect for a supper with a side salad or as a side when feeding a crowd.
Spiral tart
Equipment
- Baking Beans
- Tart tin
- Vegetable peeler
Ingredients
- 1/2 butternut squash cubed
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic finely chopped
- 1 ready made gluten free pastry
- 2 aubergines
- 2 carrots
- 2 courgettes
- 4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon dried sage you can use fresh, you will need 2 or 3 leaves
- 1/2 to 1 teaspoon chilli flakes
- 1 teaspoon caster sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 180C
- Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a pot and sauté the onions until transparent, add the garlic and cook for a moment more. Add the cubed butternut, the sage and a tablespoon of water and simmer until the butternut squash is soft, around 10 minutes.
- Remove the butternut from the heat and puree with a stick blender. Set aside.
- Grease your tart tin. Roll your pastry out and fill the tart dish with the pastry, trim the edges. Prick the base of the pastry with a fork, line with grease proof paper and fill with baking beans (or rice) and bake blind for 10 minutes. Remove the beans and bake for 5 minutes more. remove from the oven.
- Use a vegetable peeler slice your vegetables into ribbons. Mix two tablespoons of olive oil with the chilli flakes and caster sugar. Toss your vegetable ribbons in the olive oil.
- Spread the butternut puree over the base of the tart.
- take a ribbon each of aubergine, carrot and courgette and layer them. You may need to trim them a little. Roll into a spiral and place in the middle of the tart. Use the rest of the ribbons to form concentric circles around the first spiral.
- Brush all over with the last tablespoon of olive oil and bake for 45 minutes.
Notes
I used a toothpick to anchor my ribbons while adding the next round.