Rainbow peppers + potato tart

So whilst we are in full swing of national potato day I have a fantastic but equally as simple potato tart for you all to whip up. When we went on our potato pilgrimage last week to the Ballyknocken school of cooking Catherine showed us how easy it was to put together a potato tart. For hers she used caramelised onions and thyme with salad potatoes, well it was divine so I thought to myself have a look in your fridge girl + see  what happens.

For this recipe you will need:

1 roll of puff pastry

1 cup of homemade tomato sauce(see previous blogs)

1/2 red pepper

1/2 Yellow pepper

1 teaspoon of chopped thyme

1/2 cup of ricotta cheese

4 medium queen potatoes already cooked

Olive oil 

Salt and pepper to season

Rocket to garnish

Pre heat your oven to 200'c. Unroll your puff pastry no need to roll it thinner it will be thin enough.

 Cut your pastry into 4 pieces then ladle on the tomato sauce leaving the edges clean. Next slice your potatoes thinly and place them onto the pastry evenly, follow this with your thinly sliced peppers. Then with a spoon dollop the ricotta in and around the potatoes. Lastly drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. 

Pop the four mini tarts in the pre heated oven for 25mins. The pastry should be golden in colour and puffed up nicely on the sides. I liked to garnish the tarts with some fresh peppery rocket, absolutely gorgeous and so so simple.

My orange + poppy seed cake

Big things were happening this weekend in my house, the hubby was coming home from Canada for good + all I can say is there is two little girlies who were bursting with excitement. It was as mad as Christmas Eve last night. We were like the Walton's in my bed I was hanging out the side while the mini num nums were like star fish HA...

it's a given that we'll be having visitors + that also we'll be calling round to family + friends, so any excuse for mento come up with a cake recipe for the blog. And I know iv mentioned the love affair my grand dad had with all things sweet before but a real favorite for him when he and my Nanos would come stay with us down in the sticks was an orange cake I can still smell the fragrant cake that filled the kitchen. 

So I'm using this occasion to finally give an orange cake with a twist of course a go..

For this recipe you will need:

2 cups of butter

2 cups of sugar

4 eggs

1/2 cup of orange zest

Zest of 1 1/2 oranges

3/4 cup of buttermilk 

3 cups of plain flour

1/2 teaspoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of baking soda 

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of poppy seeds

This recipe will make two 2lb loaf cakes

Firstly cream your butter + sugar until pale in colour, next add in your 4 eggs one at a time what I actually like to do is beat the eggs together in a separate bowl + add that to the mixture I find its less likely for the eggs to split.

Once their all combined add the juice + zest of your oranges well. In a separate bowl sift together all your dry ingredients + by hand fold it in to your wet mixture along with the buttermilk .

Lastly sprinkle in the gorgeous blue, grey + black dots that are your poppy seeds into your batter and evenly combine.

Pour your cake batter into two loaf tins which you must grease and flour before hand so the yummy cakes don't stick.

Bake for 45 minutes @ 160'

Once out of the oven I trickled a simple syrup over the cakes

made from 1/2 cup of orange juice with 1/2 cup of sugar. The when the cakes were completely cooled I drizzled the cakes with an orange glaze made from 2 cups of icing sugar + just enough orange juice that it makes an oozy consistency...

Enjoy

Rebecca x