Verdant Veg

The clouds may be looming, but summer still calls. Tonight's supper was a lemony, parmesany ricotta tart with a lotta green veg thrown on top. I've become a bit of a ricotta convert recently. Healthy, but indulgent, this tart ticks all the right boxes for a light summer supper or, made in mini form, for a zingy starter to set off your barbecue. 

The recipe is adapted from the Waitrose Kitchen magazine, a personal favourite (though admittedly very middle class) publication. For all you other aficionados, skip this and head to page 41 of the magazine.

The tart is made from half a sheet of puff pastry (baked alone for 15 mins), topped with ricotta (mixed with lemon zest, pepper, salt and parmesan) and veg (blanched peas, sugar snap peas and leeks, all mixed with oil and lemon juice), and garnished with pea shoots.

July's issue also offered some tips from Nigella, one of which particularly resonated as I know it affects many cooks among my family and friends...

"This is so much easier to say than to do, but try, when you're cooking for people, not to apologise nervously for what you've made, alerting them to some failure only you might be aware of, or indeed, might have invented. Besides, it only creates tension, and although I do believe food is important, atmosphere matters so much more."

So, next time you're offering up a plate of saggy yorkshires, claggy pasta or charcoaled rhubarb to the table, give the group a chance to enjoy it. My father, for one, enjoys most foods with a slightly burnt edge. Or perhaps he's been lying all my life; a small kindness in return for many a charred cookie and cupcake. 

Garlic and Galettes

After the sunshine comes the rain... Durham is showery. Amy and Josie went to pick the wild garlic which is all over the banks of the river and the forests - you can smell it in the air on a lap of the Bailey. They blended it with pine nuts, basil, lemon juice and oil to make the most beautiful wild garlic pesto to go with fresh pasta. Follow me on Instagram @lashart93 to see photos!

For dinner - can you tell we have more free time after exams? - we made a galette. It's one of the best ways to use up bits and bobs of veg and cheese from the fridge in a kind of elegant way. I make my pastry with 1 part butter to 2 parts flour, with a bit of water thrown in to bind it together. I roasted a load of veg (courgette, carrot, sweet potato, red onion and baby plum tomatoes), added some 'salad cheese' and whacked it on top of the pastry. When the edges are folded over, it goes in the oven to cook. All that was left was to ask our guest to bring us hummus and crisps; always a winner but we plan to make our own next time!

The idea for this comes from the winter vegetable and gorgonzola galette at Happy Yolks, but Donal Skehan has a recipe for a tomato, ricotta and thyme one and Apt. 2B has one for rhubarb and apple.