Tomato tart

I needed a quick snack in between for my guests, and as I am a fan of savoury pies, I made this one up as I went along. It was very well received, which is always nice, and I feel like I should've made more. That's how quickly it disappeared.

This is a great tart for the summer, and you can even use some colourful heirloom tomatoes on this to make it look more interesting. This also is a very basic tart and doesn't require much effort at all. Here are my instructions.

Ingredients

4 shallots

2 garlic cloves

1 tbsp olive oil

½ tsp ground black pepper

½ tsp salt

½ tsp Herbes de Provence

400 g shortcrust pastry

150 g extra mature Cheddar

100 g cherry tomatoes

Method

Chop the shallots and garlic finely and cook them in olive oil until soft. Season them with black pepper, salt and Provençal herbs. Allow the mix to cool.

Roll out the pastry thinly and place it into a Ø 25cm pie tin that has been lined with baking parchment. It's even easier, if you buy are a readily rolled pastry.

Chop the tomatoes into halves and grate the cheese. Mix the shallots with the grated cheese and spread on the pastry base and place the tomato halves on the top.

Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes. This tart is best to be served warm, but we also took some slices on a New Forest picnic and they were perfectly fine as a cold snack as well. Maybe anything tastes really nice in these wonderful New Forest sceneries, though.

Your VegHog