Recipe: Goat's Cheese and Butternut Squash Tartlet

We had a fantastic meal last Saturday at The Stag, Offchurch. My delicious vegetarian main inspired me to make my own version. This is an incredibly easy weekday meal, which is both beautiful to look at and to eat. I served my tart with steamed kale, my current favourite vegetable.

Goat's Cheese Tartlet with squash, red onion marmalade and pumpkin seeds.

Serves 4
Takes 15 minutes if squash already cooked or 45 minutes if the squash is uncooked.

1 sheet of just-roll shortcrust pastry
1 jar of red onion marmalade (I made my own. I'll add a recipe for it shortly, but it's more than fine to buy your own)
1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
2 tbsp soft goat's cheese (it's fine to use the more usual, strongly flavoured version, but I much prefer the softer, milder version)
1 frond of rosemary
1/2 large butternut squash or 1 small one

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
2. Chop up your squash (don't bother to peel it). Cut the squash into 1 inch pieces and sprinkle with a little rosemary. Place on an oven tray (with the skin facing down) and brush the sides with olive oil.
3. Bake for 15 minutes and then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Turn over the pieces.
4. Increase the temperature of the oven to 200 degrees Celsius and bake for a further 15 minutes until the squash is golden and sticky.

5. To prepare  your pastry: start by undoing the sheet of pastry and removing it from its plastic sheeting.
6. Cut the pastry into 4 equal pieces and carefully score the edge, 1 cm from the edge. Make sure you don't cut all the way through the pastry with this scoring.

7. Brush the pastry with milk to help it turn golden brown.
8. Place in the oven and cook until brown and puffed up.

9. The rest is just simple arrangement. Place a pastry square on a plate and spread 1 tablespoon of onion marmalade on the pastry.

10. Place a few squares of squash on top together with some crumbled goat's cheese and a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds.