Random recipe roundup: Chocolate tart, mushroom quiche, raspberry pancakes and more

The joy of having a decent cameraphone on you at all times is that you never miss a chance to snap something beautiful you get at a restaurant or something tasty you've just made. The downside is that you end up with a waxy build-up of random shots food on your phone you feel obliged to purge in an equally random blog post.

Join me, dear readers, for a new series: Crap I Found on My Phone. Some of this stuff is antediluvian, so you can play Guess What's In It along with me.

First up, this bowl of what appears to be a mix of quinoa, squash, tomato, parsley, black beans, and kale. It's the sort of dish I cook up when I imagine I have to placate the health gods: look, oh great ones, beans and greens on one plate! Please forgive me for my continued worship of cake!

Worship of cake that may have taken the form of this:

It's the Inspiral raw blackout cake, picked up from Whole Foods. It comes in a cute little jar, and because it's raw, it allows you to think you're actually eating some form of health food. At least, that's what I tell myself. Next up: work out the mental tricks needed to convince myself that as beer is made of hops and yeast, it can somehow be counted towards my five a day.

Also excavated from my phone was this picture of raspberry pancakes:

These were a surprise breakfast treat made by a great friend of mine when I stayed the weekend at her house. We stayed up late playing zombie-themed computer games, and when I awoke, there was a whole pile of lovely raspberry pancakes ready for me. 

I grant you, they may not look like food-styled beauties, but I'd already eaten platefuls of them with such speed, it took super-human restraint to pause for a moment, pull out my phone and take a picture. They were lovely and pillowy and sharp from the fruit. A friend with pancakes is a friend indeed.

Next up, another Borough market vegetable buying expedition that ended with me having bought something cool I had no idea what to do with: a big bag of pied bleu mushrooms. They have a lovely faint blue colour, and a lovely bouncy texture. 

I decided to put them to use in a recipe that originally featured in the Guardian's top 10 cauliflower recipes (scroll down to the bottom - it's the roasted cauliflower tart with oat-walnut crust and lemon herb filling recipe).

I followed the recipe but subbed out the cauliflower for the pied bleus and went from there. I had been planning to make it more of a quiche using silken tofu, but after my blender started making a funny noise, I fished out from amongst it all a peg. Yep, a common or garden clothes peg, which I can only assume was in the Mori-Nu box somewhere. Has anyone else had that happen?!

I decided to abandon the tofu and peg to the bin (I'm all for trying out new flavours, but trying splinters is a little too far out) and use the Guardian recipe. It turns out like this:

(It's in two halves because my other half is a mushroom phobe, so he got the tomato half.

The crust was amazing - far more interesting than the standard pastry, enlivened by the addition of walnuts and oats. The quiche-type filling also got bonus points for a) tasting nice and creamy without the need for silken tofu and b) not having a clothes peg in it.

I served it with a salad which is my new favourite: roast butternut squash and green pepper with spring greens, and a dressing made of equal quantities hummus and lime pickle.

I am firmly of the belief that lime pickle makes everything better. Luckily, it didn't have a lot of work to do with this tart.