ZUCCHINI AND WHIPPED FETA TART

That time of the year is here again. When the weather gets colder and during the weekends all you want to do is stay in bed or cozy up to some hot chocolate and your Netflix subscription. I'm talking about Fall, obviously, and while it's not cold everywhere right now, it sure starts becoming colder here in Zurich. Some people don't like giving up the warmer temperatures of summer for the moody and cloudy mornings of autumn. Personally and as a food photographer, I really like cloudy days for photo sessions and then sunny days when I'm not photoshooting. But also I love all the amazing recipes that we get to do during autumn or winter, like stews, soups, pies and tons of desserts.

Talking about autumn recipes, today we're going to a pumpkin festival, where more than 150 types of pumpkins will be there for us to choose. I'm so excited about it and can't wait to be surrounded by amazing and fresh pumpkins. Pumpkin is such a versatile vegetable that can be incorporated in both savoury and sweet recipes. My all time favourite dish with pumpkin has to be a pumpkin and coconut milk soup. I could eat it all autumn and winter long with some freshly baked bread.

Yesterday was a very fun, relaxing and creative day. I managed to do a lot of things and prepare a savoury recipe for the blog. The inspiration came while I was in the grocery store, looking at what vegetables and fruit I could buy for the week. While I was searching for some eggplants to make our traditional dish (mousaka), I saw some zucchini standing next to them and it was at that moment that the idea for a simple and flavourful tart came. I had some feta cheese at home, waiting to be loved and this idea for a recipe was perfect.

The recipe is very simple, you only need fresh ingredients and some love for your zucchini. I tried to take some photos showing you how I prepared the dough, because I find that photos are sometimes better than words. If you want of course, you can make your own dough. I used a store bought one that I find is not too buttery, because I find if it contains too much butter it's not so good for my digestion later. So, without further chatting (or typing) let's move on to the recipe.

Zucchini and Whipped Feta Tart

ingredients (for 4 to 6 servings)

1 store bought dough (1 sheet)

1 large zucchini

100gr feta cheese

100gr full fat greek yoghurt

1 garlic clove

fresh parsley (chopped)

pepper

sweet paprika (optional)

How do I make it?

1. Take out your dough and lay it on a clean surface. Using a roller, try to roll it out a bit, but not too much as you want it to be thick in order to be able to hold the whipped feta and the zucchini. Turn your oven to 160C and carefully place the dough on a pan with baking paper.

2. Using a knife, try to shape a rectangular on the dough leaving about 5cm of space from the sides. Then, take a fork and start making fork shapes on the dough with light pressure (pictured below). You do that so when the dough is baked you let the air come through and your dough doesn't puff. Bake the dough for 5 minutes and then let it cool a little bit while you prepare the rest of the ingredients. (I didn't prebake my dough as I forgot about it, but I advise you to bake it on its own before adding the ingredients on top).

3. Cut the zucchini in thin slices. Then, use a food processor to mix together the feta cheese, greek yoghurt and garlic glove. Pulse the processor well until you get a creamy texture, but there are a few pieces of feta cheese inside. Mix inside some pepper and sweet paprika if you want to. Pour the mixture into a bowl and add some freshly chopped parley and stir with a spoon.

4. When your dough is cooled, start adding some of the whipped feta on top, staying inside the rectangular shape you created in step 2. Cover the whole rectangular area and then start placing the zucchini. For lack of words, I provide you a photo on how to place the zucchini (but to be honest, it doesn't matter, we do it like these for appearance reasons).