Coconut-strawberry tart

Coconut ad strawberry tart with a bit of coconut and ice sugar for the decor

I love strawberry tart and I love to make some! Usually the best time starts end of March in Japan, but this year we've started to have delicious strawberry for a few weeks already, so I couldn't wait!

I love to make variations with the dough, with the custard. This year I added some grated coconut in the dough and made the custard with soya milk and a lot of vanilla. I also wanted to try making the dough in circles and just top it with custard and strawberries. I need a little more practice but the result was not bad at all!

For the dough I used flour, brown sugar, one egg, butter, and added some coconut (I always make the dough without measuring anything, I like to "feel" it).

For the custard I used 2 egg yolks, a little can of soya milk, vanilla, a spoon of flour and brown sugar.

Spinach and tomato tart with chick pea dough

Chick pea flour is really easy to use. Mixed with some water and fried, you make soca, a little bit thicker you can make panisse. I love pies because they can prepared in advance and are handy when work is really busy. Today I wanted to try a pie dough with chick pea flour. I mixed chick pea flour, water, olive oil, salt and pepper to obtain a soft dough. I roughly shape it to my pie dish with ghe fingers. Then I've cut tomatoes and lined them on the bottom, cover with finely cut spinach, snd a batter of tofu and eggs season with cumin, and finish with a few tomato slices. Bake for 30 minutes and it smells so good... can't wait to try it!!!

Sweet potato crust tart

Probably the last time I talk about purple sweet poratoes this year! There seems to be no more at the cooperative shop.

The other day I spotted on Instagram a really nice idea: instead of making the dough of the tart with flour, @acvb3 used thin slices of sweet potato.

I wanted to try badly but needed my mandolin that is in the country house. So finally, yesterday I could try.

I sliced finely one large purple sweet potato, olive-oiled them and lined them in a pie dish. I pre-baked them a little and then added a mixture of egg, silky tofu, sliced shiitake, na-no-hana. It's better for the mixture not to be too liquid because the potato crust might leak here and there so the tofu is really helping a lot here. Then I just baked it normally. It was really delicious!

Happy new year 2015!!!

Starting the year in veggie mood!
Our local shops were closed when we arrived in our country house and they will remain closed until the end of the week fir the traditional Japanese new year holidays.
Since shopping possibilities were limited I starting the year with a number of veggie receipes.
Starting with a spinach and tofu whole-wheat and soya flours tart for 2015!!