Onion Tart

With no meat in sight in the fridge or the in freezer, but about a ton of onions in the pantry, I set out to make an onion tart for dinner. Having never made an onion tart before I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to make, and with how absolutely tasty the finished tart was.

Next time I'm going to try and use a mild blue cheese instead of just normal cheese, to give it a little more flavour.

Can't wait to make this again!

Onion tart
Adapted from Bärbloggen
Serves 4

Pie crust
3 ½ dl flour
150 g cold butter, cut into pieces
a pinch salt
about 2 tbsp ice cold water

Filling
4 medium onions
3 eggs
2 ½ dl milk
3 dl grated cheese
salt and pepper
a little paprika powder

Preheat the oven to 200° C.
1. Start by making the pie crust, as this needs to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Place the flour, butter and salt in a food processor. Mix/pulse until you have a crumbly mix, then add in 1 tbsp of water and pulse. The dough might come together at this point, but if it doesn't, add in a little bit more water until the dough comes together. Place the dough in a plastic bag, flatten it out and place in the fridge to chill for at least 30 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, start on the filling. Cut the onions using a mandolin, or a sharp knife, into really thin rings. Heat some butter or oil in a pan, and fry the onions on a medium to high heat until translucent. Set aside to cool off.

3. Take the pie crust dough out of the fridge and roll it out onto a floured surface. Lift up the dough and fit into a tart pan. Make sure the edges are covered all the way up if you are using a pan with low edges. Prick the pie crust and line it with some parchment paper, and fill with ceramic baking beans or rice. Blind bake for 15 minutes.

4. While the crust is blind baking in the oven, combine the eggs, milk, cheese and spices in a bowl. Whisk to combine.

5. Take out the pie crust from the oven and remove baking beans and parchment paper. Add the, now chilled, onions to the crust. Pour the egg and cheese mix on top, and place the whole thing back into the oven for 30 minutes or until the eggs have set.

Serve with a green salad.

Potato and spinach quiche

I'm back, as per usual I don't have a good reason for being away from such a long time.

I found the recipe for this quiche well over a year ago on the back of the bag that the potatoes came in. I scribbled it down and put it in my recipe folder thinking I'd get around to trying it out sometime soon. This was not the case, I forgot all about the recipe and only came across it again a few days ago when I was rummaging through the recipe folder looking for inspiration for dinner. Next time I make it I'm going to add in some feta cheese for a little extra flavour!

Potato and spinach quiche
Serves 4

Crust:
150 g butter
3 dl flour
2-2½ tbsp ice cold water

Filling:
300 g boiled, cold potatoes
200 g baby spinach, roughly chopped
1 red onion, cut into thin rings
50 g sun-dried tomatoes, roughly chopped
4 eggs
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
1 dl heavy cream
1 tbsp dill, chopped
salt & pepper

Set your oven to 200° C.
1. Start by making the crust. In a food processor, combine flour and butter. When crumbly, add in a little water at a time until the mixture forms a ball. Wrap in plastic film and place in the fridge to chill for about 1 hr. When chilled, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface and line a springform pan, letting the pastry come up around the edges about 5 cm. With some aluminum foil, cover the edges so when you bake it the edges will not collapse. Pre-bake the crust for 10 mins.

2. While the pastry is chilling in the fridge, prepare the filling. Cut the potatoes into slices and then cut the slices in half. Mix with the spinach, red onion and the sun-dried tomatoes. In a separate bowl, crack the eggs, add the heavy cream, Parmesan cheese, dill and salt & pepper, whisk to combine.

3. Place the dry filling in the now pre-baked crust, and pour in the egg mixture.

4. Bake the pie at (the recipe says 170° C but I had to use 200 ° and my oven is only about 3 years old- I say, if it doesn't set at 170° C up the temp to 200° C) 170° C for 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Midsummer tart

Shrimp-, crayfish-, tomato-, artichoke- and button mushroom pie
Serves 6

Pie crust:
3 dl flour
1 pinch salt
150 g unsalted butter
water

Filling:
2 tomatoes
6 button mushrooms
1 can artichoke hearts
300g crayfish tails
or 150 g crayfish tails and 150 g shrimps
4 eggs
2 dl heavy cream
2 dl milk
salt and white pepper

1. Start off by making the pie crust. Mix the ingredients in a food processor or by hand. Add water, a little at a time, until you have a ball of pie crust dough. Chill for 1 hour.

2. Pre-heat the oven to 200° C. Roll out the pie crust and pre-bake it for 15 minutes.

3. Dice the tomatoes, mushrooms, and artichoke hearts. Fry the mushrooms in a little butter until all the liquid has evaportated.

4. In a bowl, combine the eggs, cream, milk, and salt and pepper. Place the filling the pie crust, pour over the egg mix.

5. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes. After 12 ½ minutes cover the pie with aluminum foil.

I must have done something wrong when I made this because I had to have it in the oven for well over 1 hour before I got it to set properly... Hope yours goes better.

Midsummer is a really big thing in Sweden. More in the olden days than these days, Swedes danced around an upside-down phallic symbol, something to do with fertility apparently. These days people get together with friends and family to enjoy traditional Swedish summer food and to enjoy each others company.

Being a Swede abroad I thought I'd bring Swedish midsummer to me, rather than the other way around. I invited a friend from Sweden to come celebrate with me and all was good. I had planned on making mum's traditional midsummer dinner (probably the same as everyone else has at midsummer); herring, dill-boiled potatoes, meatballs, mini sausages, sour creme and chopped chives. But for some reason I got side-tracked, and we ended up having a savoury pie for a first course, shrimps in baguettes from our main course, and sticky chocolate cupcakes for dessert. We had already started off the festivities with a delicious, and super easy to make, salad for lunch.

Shrimps, sweet corn, tomatoes, apples, feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, romaine lettuce, red onions, and yesterday's garlic chicken leftovers.

Shrimp-, crayfish-, tomato-, artichoke- and button mushroom pie. Click for recipe

Sticky chocolate cupcakes with chocolate- and coffee flavoured frosting.

Salami- and feta cheese tart

Don't look at a recipe and go "oh no, I don't have all the ingredients to make this, so I can't make this today". Instead, go "what ingredients do I have that can replace the ones I don't have at home right now". I never go "oh no", but go "ok, let's be creative". Admittedly sometimes you can't substitute one thing for something else, then you just have to deal with it, and either not cook that particular dish, or go grocery shopping. But most of the time it really pays off to go creative.

I am always quite 'oh well' when it comes to recipes. I don't always read them through thoroughly and it is not uncommon for me to somewhere down the line realize I have missed something and will have to go rummaging through my pantry for this particular thing. But I almost never discourage, except for the other day when I tried making naan bread and ended up binning the whole thing as the dough kept crumbling..., anyway, I almost always pull through and come up with something inventive way of saving the "day".

Like yesterday. I had planned on making Salami- and feta cheese tart. I had had my eye on this particular recipe ever since I saw it in one of those free recipe folders I picked up at the supermarket the other day. I mean, doesn't it sound delicious?! Salami- and feta cheese tart. (Gosh I hate that word, tart... pie sounds so much better).
I didn't have salami, or spinach, or black olives at home. So what did I do? I used chorizo, button mushrooms, and green olives instead. Not the most off-the-wall substitutions, but still.

Here's the original recipe:


Salami- and feta cheese tart
Serves 4-6

Pie crust
3 ½ dl all-purpose flour
150 g margarine, or butter
½ tsp salt
3 tbsp water

Filling
100 g fresh spinach, or 50 g frozen
1 tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
100 g feta cheese
8 cherry- or cocktail tomatoes, cut in halves
10 black olives, pip removed
50 g pepper- or regular salami, cut into strips
1-2 tsp dried oregano
3 eggs
3 dl Low fat Creme Fraiche

1. Make the crust by blitzing all the ingredients in a food processor, or by hand until you have a solid but pliable dough. Set to rest in the fridge for a minimum of 30 minutes.
Press the chilled dough into a round, loose-bottomed mould (24-26 cm) allowing the pasty to come up around the edges about 5 cm. With some aluminum foil, cover the edges so when you bre-bake it the edges will not collapse. Pre-bake the pastry for 10 minutes in a 225 C hot oven. Remove the foil.

2. Wilt the spinach in a hot pan, season with salt and pepper.

3. Add the spinach, feta cheese, tomatoes, olives, and salami to the baked crust.

4. In a bowl, mix the eggs and the creme fraiche. Season with the oregano. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.

5. Bake the pie, on 200 C, on the bottom rack of the oven until the filling has set nicely and the top has turned golden.

(My tart came out a little loose, don't really know why).

På svenska:
Salami- och fetaost paj

Smoked salmon and spinach tart

Ok, it's time for my first recipe. It's one of my favourite "new" recipes. The last time I made this tart was for Easter and everyone, me and my boyfriend, loved it. However, I couldn't find any spinach at the supermarket so had to improvise and ended up using broccoli instead. (My boyfriend actually prefered it with broccoli, so I guess that'll be what I'll be making from now on).

Smoked salmon and spinach/broccoli tart

Pastry

3 dl all-purpose flour
1 tbsp grated parmesan cheese

125 g unsalted butter or margarine

2- 2½ tbsp cold water

Filling

1 small leek

100 g fresh spinach, or frozen broccoli

100 g smoked salmon

1 dl grated cheese

2 eggs

1 dl heavy cream

2 pinches salt

3 pinches lemon-infused ground black pepper

Heat oven to 200 C.

1.Mix flour, Parmesan cheese and butter so that it looks like crumble. Add water, a little at a time, and make a dough. Set to rest, covered with a damp cloth, for 30 min. Press the chilled dough into a round, loose-bottomed mould (23-24 cm), letting the pastry come up around the edges about 5 cm.. With some aluminum foil, cover the edges so when you bake it the edges will not collapse. Prebake the pastry for 10 mins.

2.Clean and chop the leek. Put some oil in a pan, heat and steam the leeks for a few minutes allowing them to get soft. Roughly chop the spinach, if you are using frozen broccoli cut the florets lengthways, add to the pan allowing the spinach to wilt or the broccoli to heat. Pour out on a plate to chill.

3. Cut the salmon into strips and mix with the spinach/broccoli.

4. Combine eggs, cream, salt and lemon-infused pepper in a bowl. Add the grated cheese and the spinach-salmon mix.

5. Pour the mixture into the prebaked pastry, be sure to remove the tin foil first!

6. Bake on the bottom rack of the oven for 35-40 minutes. The tart should be firm to the touch when done.

Serve with a fresh salad.

Can be served hot or cold, and is excellent to freeze for up to 3 months.