Almond Rocket Pesto and a Tart

I'm on a bit of a pesto kick at the moment - especially the more random combinations. We've had a great recipe for regular pesto that's been on almost weekly rotation for a while now but basil and pine nuts can be expensive. And hey, it's always fun to mix things up a bit! So this time it's almond (because they were lying around) and rocket (because, um, it was lying around). And? So good!!! I think I may be obsessed. So many different flavour possibilities!

Pesto's one of those things that's just great to use in a huge variety of dishes. I think stirring it into pasta has to be one of my least favorite things to do with it (although, of course, we still eat it that way a whole lot). A recent discovery was aubergine wrapped halloumi with a smear of pesto on the inside - absolutely delicious but oh so ugly! The photos really don't do it justice so I shall have to make it again and pay a little more attention to its visual appeal before sharing it with you. JJ was close to tears it was so good. Or that might have been the quantity of garlic used... No, it was the halloumi, I'm sure!

Anyway, no matter what kind of pesto I have on hand, I LOVE to use it in tarts. Especially vegetable tarts - it really ups the flavour and helps contrast the sweetness of the vegetables. In the winter, it's a blind-baked tart shell, a coating of pesto, a heap of roasted veggies and a basic quiche filling. But I really don't feel inclined to roast up vegetables in the spring, especially when the season is all about the vibrant greens of new life rather than the dusky reds and russets of autumn. So, very much inspired by this recipe, I went for a substantially lighter, cleaner tart with a thin layer of filling - something that I'll definitely be doing again! Makes the whole thing much lighter and the eggy base doesn't overwhelm the other ingredients.

All in all, this was incredible. I'm ashamed to say that I managed to demolish the whole thing before JJ even got a look in (over two nights, mind - I'm not that bad. I did have to physically restrain myself from eating it all on night one though...). This pastry is surprisingly forgiving - I struggle so much with pastry but I've made this countless times. This time, I really thought I'd done it when I carried on messing around with it but it was just as flakey and perfectly savory as always. Now to perfect my sweet pastry...

Recipes - I will add them later this evening as I totally forgot to copy them down before I left the house this morning!! Oops... But the inspiration for the tart can be found here.

Rosy xx