Where do you do the majority of your food dreaming?  We do ours in the car - usually when we're waiting for son & heir to come out of school.  Maybe you don't dream up recipes at times like these, but instead dream of beach holidays, or a fine bottle of wine.  Well, this tart was dreamt up (mostly) when we were sat in the car waiting for son & heir.

I had the streaky bacon in the fridge already, as I'd bought it with a view to wrapping the chicken with it on Sunday last, or at the very least using it to contribute some flavour to a chicken and cider casserole.  However, neither of those things happened and instead we had a lemon & thyme roasted chicken - which was okay, but nothing to write home about.

So our starting point for the tart was the sole sheet of puff pastry that was lurking in the fridge.  I'd very nearly turned it into an apple pie, only to be thwarted by the sudden onset of chauffeuring duties, so it lived to fight another day.

Hence, we'd got the pastry and the bacon - so what went with those, that we hadn't already made?  Hubby came up with the pear idea and I embellished it with the Maple syrup.  We then needed something to hold everything else together - and a blue cheese seemed the obvious choice.  Because of the bacon having the potential to be salty we decided against a creamy Danish Blue as they are often so very salty.  A nice piece of Stilton seemed the obvious choice thereafter.    Now, what to serve with the tart?  We figured that, as the tart itself would be really quite rich, perhaps a salad would be a good idea - and opted for a mixed salad with walnuts and walnut vinaigrette.  It sounded as though that would complement the ingredients in the tart quite nicely - and so it did.

The vinaigrette was a simple matter of crushing 4-5 walnut halves in a pestle & mortar and adding Extra Virgin Olive Oil, some of the gorgeous Maille Cider Vinegar, plus sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.  Powerful stuff - but very effective.

This isn't a meal to serve to young children, as the flavours are incredibly adult and the juxtaposition of the sweet pear, salty bacon, rich cheese and dry, earthy walnuts is not for the faint-hearted.  I was pleased that son & heir managed the whole very well, albeit he opted not to have the vinaigrette.  He did have some walnuts on his salad, though.  As a 13 year old gastronome, I think he's showing promise.  His comment was that the tart was lovely, but the sweetness of the maple pears was a bit too much for his taste.

I know that, next time I make this tart, I'll abandon the idea of the Maple syrup even though it accentuated the flavour of the pear beautifully.  The pear I used was a Comice - an enormous Comice - which was slightly under ripe.  Owing to the fact that it was quite hard, it pan-fried perfectly.  I wouldn't want to try pan frying a ripe pear, as I suspect you'd wind up with pear mush rather than discernible slices!

As I said previously, I love making tarts - and this one was no exception – but the next dish was just as rewarding.

“The best enchiladas ever!” was how yesterday’s dinner was described by both hubby and son.

I can't take full credit for the Chicken & Bean Enchiladas recipe though, as the original version came from a BBC Good Food magazine - and you can find the original recipe online.  For all that my version of the recipe is very similar, I did opt to develop my own spicing for them and, instead of using roast chicken legs, I cooked off two raw chicken breasts that had been lurking in my freezer, looking for something to do.

In fact, I am jolly pleased with this recipe.  To explain, our butcher sells chicken breasts as 5 for £5.  Ordinarily, I'm preparing a breast for each of us, which leaves the odd number of two.  Invariably, these get added to the freezer and we buy another 5.  So, to have a recipe that uses just two chicken breasts across a meal that satisfies 3 people, is marvellous.

As for the spicing, well, I object to having to pay 85p and upwards for a sachet of spice mix when I've invariably got exactly those spices - but individually - in my cupboard.  So, I had a good old look at the ingredients list on three different sachets and discovered that there was nothing involved in the pre-prepared spice mix that I didn't have.  I knew I had to provide a tablespoonful of fajita seasoning and I have had fajitas previously so I knew the sort of balance of flavours I was after.  My spice mix consisted of a flat teaspoonful of smoked paprika, three quarters of a teaspoonful of hot chilli powder, a rounded teaspoonful of ground cumin, a third of a teaspoonful of thyme and the same again of ground black pepper.  Having mixed all those in, the chilli effect wasn't quite as pronounced as I wanted, so I added a pinch of dried chilli flakes, plus some salt.  Perfect!

This really is simplicity itself to make.  I whipped up the enchilada filling before collecting son & heir from school, then when we returned, I filled the enchiladas, covered them with grated cheddar - and by the time I'd opened the sour cream, the salsa and made a little salad, the enchiladas had ten minutes left in the oven.  It really couldn't have gone any better.

If you're planning on cooking these for younger children who can manage a knife and fork but who don't have the track record of being able to cope with chilli, you can easily leave out the chilli flakes (which makes them mediumly spicy) and/or the chilli powder (which renders them mildly chillified).  The beans come in a chilli sauce which is very mildly spiced - so the enchiladas can be adjusted up or down, according to taste.

I enjoyed this dish very much.  For us, the spicing was perfectly balanced and could be adjusted up or down as you ate them by the addition of the spicy salsa or alternatively the sour cream.  I was initially sceptical about the inclusion of the kidney beans in spicy sauce, but I will admit that this ingredient made the dish.  Something else that made the enchiladas both interesting and added a slight crunch, was the addition of the sweetcorn.  I really liked the textural changes it brought and the additional little shots of sweetness.

Both hubby and son & heir were quite upset when they'd finished their two and half enchiladas - and were begging me to make them again, and soon.  The next time I have two chicken breasts looking for a home to go to, I think I will!

Both recipes can be found on http://jennyeatwellsrhubarbginger.blogspot.com