Roasted Garlic Tomato Tart | Vegan

Summer is coming to an end, all the beautiful produce that have been flooding in is about to slow down. So while we still have some beautiful juicy, bright red tomatoes, let's make a tart!

I made this in France early August when we were visiting our parents. It was actually all dreamt up by Michael's mum Catherine. Both M's parents are amazing cooks, and always have some amazing recipes with produce straight from the garden.

Now ideally you would make this with organic beautiful tomatoes still warm from the sun, but any tomatoes will do, just make sure they are tasty ripe ones. In this recipe, I also used beautiful French purple garlic, which in my opinion is the best garlic out there! but again, big bulbs of any fresh garlic would work beautifully.

This makes the perfect QUICK summer lunch, but also a lovely fresh dinner! You could also try this with cooked beetroot instead of tomatoes, or mushrooms... so many options!

Ingredients :

- 4 to 5 medium ripe tomatoes (a bit more or less depending on how big the pastry sheet it!)
- 2 big bulbs of garlic
- 1 roll of vegan store bought puff pastry (most puff pastry out there are accidentally vegan as they are made with margarine)
- 1 jar of vegan tapenade or vegan pesto
- Olive oil
-  Balsamic glaze (regular balsamic would work too although less sweet)
- fresh herbs like basil, marjoram, thyme, rosemary (pick as you wish or mix a few!)
- salt & pepper

Method :

- Prep your heads of garlic. Peel off a few layers of the outer skin, but make sure the bulb stays intact with all cloves attached. Trim the top off (about 1/3rd or less) to expose all the open cloves.

- Place the bulbs in foil, drizzle them with a little olive oil. Wrap them up in the foil and place them in the oven at 200°C for about 30 to 40 min.

- While the garlic is in the oven, take your pastry roll out of the fridge (read instructions on the pack, they normally need to be taken out 30min before cooking, or longer if it's a frozen one!)

- When the garlic is all nicely golden and roasted (the cloves will be all soft and gooey) , take them out to cool down.

- Prep your pastry sheet. Roll it out onto a non stick backing tray. I stretched mine a bit so it's a bit bigger, but you do you! Fold the edge gently all around (see picture below)

- When the garlic is cool enough to handle. Squeeze out all the lovely gooey garlic out of their skins into a bowl (it's a messy job, but oh so delicious!) when all the cloves have been squeeze out, it should all be very smooth. Mix it all with a fork into a lovely paste.

- Spread the garlic paste all over the raw pastry, no need to blind bake your pastry. Then on top of the garlic, spread your olive tapenade or pesto thinly and evenly.

- Cut your tomatoes into lovely slices. Place them in a circle like you can see below, or however else you think will look good, just make sure they're not all on top of each other or it won't cook evenly.

- When your tart is looking beautiful with fresh tomatoes, drizzle a little olive oil, and balsamic glaze. 

- Season with sea salt, pepper and your herbs of choice.

- Place in the oven at 180°C for 25 to 35 min (or follow the instruction on the pastry pack) - make sure you watch it closely, we overcooked ours a little! You want to take it out when the pastry is all cooked and golden!

- Serve with some delicious fresh salad - Bon Appétit!