Mediterranean Vegetable & ‘Feta’ Tart

1. Preheat oven to 180ºC/350ºF/Gas Mark 4.

Pastry

1. Roll out the pastry block to fit a large flan dish (diameter about 25-28 cm/10-11 inch). Spread around evenly with your thumb and fingers.
2. Roll a rolling pin over the top of the flan dish to evenly trim the edges of the pastry.
3. Refrigerate while you prepare the filling.

Vegetables

1. On a couple of oiled baking trays place the courgette, aubergine, sweet potato and pepper (keep them in sections as you might need to remove one vegetable before the rest), sprinkle with a little salt and the thyme leaves.
2. Check them every 15 minutes, turning once and remove from the oven when golden. Remove each different vegetable when it’s ready and set aside.
3. Fry the onion slices in a little oil for 20-25 minutes or until soft and caramelised.
4. Add the garlic to the onion a couple of minutes before the end of cooking time.
5. Add all the other roasted vegetables to the pan (off the heat) and mix them together.

Sauce

1. Combine all ingredients in a high-speed blender until smooth.

Assembly

1. Increase the temperature of the oven to 190ºC/375ºF/Gas Mark 5.
2. Remove the pastry case from the fridge and spoon a bit of the vegetable mixture onto the bottom. Crumble a bit of the ‘feta’ over the base. Add half of the sauce until evenly spread. Repeat this stage again until all of the mixed vegetables, sauce and cheese have been used up. Make sure you crumble some of the cheese and layer some of the veg on the top of the quiche.
3. Finish off with the cherry tomato halves, seed side facing up.
4. Cover the top of the quiche with foil or baking parchment and bake for 20 minutes. Remove the foil/baking parchment and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until golden and the cheese is bubbling.
5. Serve with a fresh salad and garlic bread or quinoa.

Note: the tart will harden as it cools so don’t worry if it’s quite soft when it comes out of the oven.