Recipe: World’s Easiest Roast Veggie Tart

by Katie on May 4, 2013 in Food, Recipes

This week, with us busy working on the house all day and very tired in the evenings as a result, our eating habits have been a bit all over the place. We’ve been having lots of quick, thrown together meals like this little tart, improvised with pantry staples for an easy (and yummy!) lunch. I roasted the veggies especially, but this recipe is also perfect for using up vegetables leftover from another meal. I used sweet potato, potato and onion in my tart, but you could use almost any vegetables you have on hand (though I would always include an onion!) You could also add fresh herbs, pesto, feta, sundried tomatoes, garlic or parmesan for extra flavour and yumminess. Think of this recipe as a blank canvas and get creative!

1/2 Medium Sweet Potato
5 Baby Potatoes
1 Brown Onion
1 Tbsp Olive Oil (or Olive Oil Cooking Spray)
4 Large Eggs
2 Tsp Self-Raising Flour
1/4 Cup Milk or Cream
1 Cup Grated Cheese
Sea Salt and Cracked Pepper

1. Preheat oven to 180°C
2. Chop sweet potato and potatoes into medium sized pieces and onion into wedges, and place in a baking dish. Drizzle/spray with olive oil and pop in the oven to roast for 45 minutes, or until tender.
3. Once vegetables are cooked, whisk eggs, milk/cream, flour, salt and pepper together in a bowl. Stir in cheese.
4. Pour egg and cheese mixture over roasted veggies.
5. Bake tart for 30 minutes, or until firm and golden.

Katie x

Comments { 9 }

This Week Looks Like This…

by Katie and Reuben on May 1, 2013 in Daily Life, Decorating, Renovating

Don’t worry, we have the very best help on hand:

Hopefully we’ll be back soon, with some kind of progress to show for a week’s worth of paint stripping, sanding and painting.

In the meantime, we hope things are peachy with you!

Katie and Reuben x

Comments { 13 }

10 Good Things Right Now

by Katie and Reuben on April 23, 2013 in Daily Life, Good Things

Visits to the farmers market, armed with keep cups full of coffee.

Homemade hummus and sourdough toast. (For lunch. For dinner. For snacks. Always!)

The new issue of Frankie.

Making friends with the lovely white cat down the street. And the sweet grey kitty across the road. And the nice fluffy cat on the way to Katie’s mum’s place…

Sigur Rós.

Strawberries and almond butter on toast.

Creating a lovely collection of necklaces and heart pins. (Almost ready to open that shop!)

Crumpet Sunday.

Sebby asking (very politely) for a little bit of milk every single time we make tea.

Crochet blankets and flannelette PJs.

What’s putting a smile on your dial today?!

Katie and Reuben x

Comments { 23 }

Crumpet Sunday

by Reuben on April 21, 2013 in Daily Life, Food, Home, Recipes

A very exciting thing happened this morning. We made crumpets from scratch! I’ve always loved crumpets and have daydreamed about making them myself for years, but I’m not the greatest cook so have always been a bit scared to give it a go. I recently decided it was time to face my fears!

Crumpets need time to rise, and I didn’t want to have to wait around for them in the morning, so I knocked most of the ingredients together last night and left the batter in the fridge overnight. This morning when we got up I threw the last couple of ingredients in and whisked it all together, then Katie cooked the crumpets in egg rings while I made cups of our favourite coffee. Lattes are a little day off tradition in our house.

It turns out I had nothing to be worried about. Crumpets are easy to make! We used this recipe and they were pretty darn good, though we might tweak it a tiny bit next time. The batter also made a lot of crumpets, but that was quite handy because we were able to pop some in the freezer for quick breakfasts during the week.

I’m so glad we finally made crumpets. Maybe next week we’ll do it again. I’m already looking forward to the next Crumpet Sunday!

Have you tried any new recipes lately? Are there any things you’ve always been a bit scared to make? I’d love to hear about your cooking adventures.

Reuben

Comments { 24 }

A Little House Update

by Katie on April 19, 2013 in Daily Life, Home, Renovating, Sustainability

It’s been a while since we posted anything about our house and a few people have asked about it recently, so I thought it was time we posted a quick update. Things have been pretty quiet on the renovating front. We’re still sleeping on the living room floor and living out of boxes! We’ve made peace with the fact it’s going to take us quite some time to get everything we want to do done. As we’ve mentioned before, when we moved in we discovered our oven and gas heater were both completely dead. We also noticed the hot water pressure was really low. Then, during a storm, the ceiling in the hallway started to leak! We assumed it was a problem with the roof (and panicked, just a little) but when Reubs climbed up into the ceiling to check it out he discovered this:

Our ancient hot water system was completely rusted out and leaking through the ceiling. It also ran on an old fashioned gravity fed system, which explained why the water pressure was so bad. It took us a ridiculously long time to lock down a plumber, but a guy finally came and replaced our hot water system a couple of weeks ago. We opted for a gas instantaneous system, which was the most energy efficent option, and now it looks like this:

Much better! Aside from replacing the hot water system we haven’t done a much else on the house since we moved in, as we’ve been pinching pennies to pay our plumber and save for a new oven and heater. We hope to scrape the money for a new gas heater together soon, because now that temperatures are starting to drop, the prospect of a winter without heating is looking a bit grim! Thankfully the air conditioner in our living room does have a reverse cycle function, so if we get really desperate we have that option, but it’s such an energy sucker we’ll do our very best to avoid using it. I forsee the use of many layers, socks and blankets in the coming months!

Reubs has some time off work at the end of next week so we hope to get lots of painting done in that time. We’ll be sure to share some photos of our progress then. Oh, and I just had to post this picture! Reuben isn’t the only one who’s been up in the ceiling. Poppy discovered the hole above the shower (where there was once an extractor fan) and has had a lovely time frolicking in the cobwebs. Silly girl.