Tomato Tart with Spinach and Ricotta

Helloooo there … so it’s been awhile. I’m still here in London, cooking and laughing and hosting. It’s been a busy few months, and somewhere along the way my little blog got neglected while I was tending to other fires. But here I am, back again to share this fresh tomato tart with spinach and ricotta with you.

I really enjoy baking savory tarts like this tomato tart garnished with a bed of whipped ricotta and topped with sauteed spinach because they can be made ahead and served at room temperature. The ability to make ahead lets me slide this tomato tart into the oven as soon as the kids are off to school. The tart can be sliced and served at room temperature, which means that hungry bellies can get filled as and when they arrive home from school and work.

If you’re thinking to yourself that this tomato tart is too fancy to make, let me share a secret with you: it’s all in the pan. This long rectangular tart/quiche pan is inexpensive, non-stick and easy to use. To save time, I regularly use premade refrigerated pie pastry (called shortcrust pastry in the UK), which comes sold in rectangular sheets. To use this rectangular pan, you can simply unroll a rectangular pre-made pastry street on top of this pan and crimp the edges to fit the sides. The end result — a gorgeous, quiche is ooh and ahh worthy but hardly requires any more effort than a traditional round one.

It’s important to note here that this quiche pan has a loose bottom piece. This feature is key in successful quiche making because it enables you to remove it from the pan. When the tomato tart is cool, you can carefully push the tart out of the pan instead of cutting it out and serving it directly from the pan and causing a crumbly mess in the meantime (like I used to do all the time before I owned a pan like this one).

So, is it time for tart baking yet? Or should we all just spend another day in our jammies together? I’m good either way…