A quick and nutritious recipe that makes for a great vegetarian dinner for when you fancy a night off from meat. The quantities in this recipe will serve approximately 4 as a main course and 6 as an entree or light lunch with salad and bread.
Ricotta, Pesto and Roasted Vegetable Tart Recipe Ingredients
- 2 sheets short crust pastry (either good quality shop bought, or use our Short Crust Pastry recipe to make your own)
- 100g fresh ricotta cheese
- 2 heaped tbsp basil pesto (either good quality shop bought, or make your own)
- Vegetables suitable for roasting, chopped into bite sized pieces*
- Olive oil for roasting
- Rocket to garnish
- Salt and pepper to taste
*You can use any vegetables you have on hand, I generally make this with a mixture of 1/2 a butternut pumpkin, 1 black zucchini, 4-6 button mushrooms, handful cherry tomatoes, 6-8 florets broccoli, 1 carrot, 1/2 bunch asparagus all cut into bite sized pieces.
Ricotta, Pesto and Roasted Vegetable Tart Recipe Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Add a good glug of olive oil to a large roasting tray, place hard vegetables (the vegetables that take the longest time to cook, for example pumpkin, carrot etc) on the tray, toss in the oil and roast for 15-20 minutes, turning frequently. When the vegetables start to soften and brown, add the remaining soft vegetables (for example broccoli, tomatoes, mushrooms etc), toss to coat with the oil and place back in the oven for a further 5-10 minutes until all vegetables are golden brown.
You don’t want to over cook the vegetables at this stage, as they will get another cooking when the tart goes in.
Mix the pesto through the ricotta and season with salt and pepper to taste (you might like to also add a little bit of lemon juice if the mixture isn’t sharp enough). Line a shallow (24 cm) greased pie dish with the pastry and blind bake for 10-15 minutes (you can do this while the vegetables are roasting) until the pastry is golden brown.
Top the pastry with the ricotta and pesto mixture and smooth down slightly. Top with the roasted vegetables and place back in the oven for a further 5-10 minutes until the pastry is crisp and the tart is warmed through.
Serve topped with rocket, and if you feel you need some meat, some finely sliced prosciutto.
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