Owning our horses is, I would imagine, similar to parenting four high-spirited and obstreperous teenagers. I’m always expecting the ‘gendarmes’ to roll up to inform us that they’ve been detained for questioning and would we like to come and bail them out (I’d have to think about that one ;-)). Our neighbour invited them to graze on her field recently to keep the grass down. In the middle of the field is (or was) an impeccable grange full of hay. Obviously I’m not a horse, but given the choice, I would think that fresh green grass would trump dusty, year-old hay any day. Apparently not so; by yesterday evening one of them (I’m not naming names) had head butted the door to the grange (it boasted a horse’s head-shaped hole) and was calmly helping himself to the meticuously stacked hay inside. Oh the shame!
Ingredients (serves 6)
Pastry
80g spelt flour
50g chickpea flour
50g butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of sea salt
Roughly 6 tablespoons of cold water
Filling
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 leek, washed and chopped
1 small courgette, peeled and chopped
5 onions (sweet if possible), peeled and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
2 teaspoons of honey
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
2 tomatoes, sliced
6 slices of goat’s cheese
8 leaves of fresh basil to decorate
To make the pastry, begin by cutting the butter into small cubes. Sift the flours and a pinch of salt together into in a mixing bowl, also adding the cubes of butter. Rub in and blend by hand until the mixture becomes crumbly. Add the olive oil, combining well and then add the cold water, mixing rapidly with a spoon. Remove the mixture from the bowl onto a lightly floured surface. Knead until you obtain a ball of pastry (if the mixture isn’t ‘sticky’ enough to form a ball, you may need a drop more water). Wrap in a clean cotton tea towel or some cling film and leave to ‘rest’ in the fridge for about two hours. This relaxes the dough and makes it easier to use.
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Fry the leek, onions, garlic and courgette in the olive oil until soft (about 15 minutes). Add the seasoning and honey and set aside. Roll out the pastry and line a tart tin . The pastry will be quite crumbly so you’ll need to be gentle and patch up the holes (I’ve become quite an expert ;-)). Blind bake the pastry for 12 minutes and then fill with the onion mixture, adding the sliced tomatoes, goat’s cheese and basil on top. Sprinkle the top with black pepper and little more paprika and bake for about 20 minutes. Serve hot.

This recipe is courtesy of Lora who came to stay recently (thanks Lora! :-)). It meant welcome respite from kitchen duties for me, but also respite for everyone elses’ taste buds which had been viciously incinerated by my tandoori chicken seasoned with copious amounts of very hot chilli powder. According to Léo, I had applied the spices with ‘unusually frenzied enthusiasm’. He confiscated my chilli stockpile as, apparently,  I am no longer to be trusted. Whatever — if it means delicacies such as these, I’m trying to think up other ways to cause grevious bodily harm to my guests ;-).
Ingredients
750g courgettes, cut into cubes
3 eggs
3 tablespoons spelt flour
175g Feta cheese, cut into cubes
100g Comté (or other hard cheese), grated
1 tablespoon cream
salt, pepper, nutmeg