Spiral Vegetable Tart and Fruity Port Steaks

Well this week was the first week of the challenge. All week I had friends and family asking me when I was cooking, what I was cooking, when was I going to post about it. Being the first week I wanted to take my time and choose a recipe that I really, really, really wanted. I landed upon a recipe I had seen several months ago on Facebook for a spiral vegetable tart. I watched the video several times when I first came across it and have been dying to try is ever since. So I started trawling back through my posts trying to find the video I had shared. But unsurprisingly, if you know Facebook, it seemed to have been eaten and was never to be seen again. Luckily a quick Google search led me to the Food Republic website. I mean really it just looks amazing!

Now that I had decided on the tart, I had to choose a meat to accompany it. I decided to use meat that we had already purchased, so I set out to find a pork steak recipe to complement the rest of the meal. I settled on this fruity pork steak recipe from the BBC Good Food website. It sounded simple, but delicious.

I first ran into problems when I was shopping for ingredients for the tart. This was mainly my fault for trying to cook an Autumn or Winter dish on Summer! But I pushed ahead. I wasn't able to find the appropriate squash or carrots, instead I used regular carrots and added sweet potato in place of the squash.

I decided to speed up the process by using a mandolin slicer to slice the veges instead of a peeler. I have to say that this made the job of slicing all those veggies way less daunting.

I was worried about the coordination I would need to wrap the veggies into a neat spiral. But I found it far easier than I anticipated and was very happy with the results. Doesn't it look gorgeous! And it hadn't even been cooked yet!

Once the tart was in the oven (and yes I will admit that I checked every 5 minutes until it was ready!), it was time to start on the pork steaks. I liked the minimal amount of prep this recipe required. I took the time to slice the onion and apple before starting, so that once I started cooking everything moved smoothly.

From the moment the steak hit the pan the house smelt amazing. The smell of the Chinese five spice and pork was just mouth watering. I appreciated that it was a simple matter of adding each new ingredient at the right time. When it came to the glaze I had been unable to find red currant jelly, so I substituted raspberry jam. I think I was actually drooling from the smells by now.

Now all that was left was to pull the tart out of the oven and see how well it had cooked. It was stunning! My only criticism is how difficult the tart was to cut. I was worried that I was going to ruin the aesthetics when I was serving it. It was also very difficult to cut when eating. I do wonder if cooked for slightly longer, in a slightly cooler oven would have made the vegetables softer and easier to cut without over cooking the pastry. Or possibly blanching the vegetables before putting the tart together. The flavour however was divine! It was a huge hit and I will definitely be cooking it again.   

The pork was also a huge hit. The glaze was a bit runny, more like a sauce but the flavour was delicious! There were many 'Mmmmmmm's issuing from the family when they tasted it, and the plates were all scraped clean, as was the saucepan.

Overall I would call this week's feast a success! Both recipes will be added into my regular rotation and I would highly recommend them. 

In case you missed the links before you can find the vegetable tart recipe HERE, and the fruity pork steak recipe HERE.

Well that's it for this week, a GIANT thank you to everyone who has stopped by and please leave a comment. See you again next week!