Pizza Tarts

Is it silly for me to say how excited I am about these little pizza tarts? Seriously, I am.

First of all, they are one of my newest lunch box recipes and I am positive they have been a HUGE hit with the boys. And secondly, they were simple to make and smelled amazing coming out of the oven. It was super hard not to gobble them up right then!

It’s too bad blogs don’t offer scratch and sniff screens…..

1 sheet refrigerated pie crust, rolled out to desired thickness

turkey pepperoni

shredded mozzarella cheese

pizza or marinara sauce

WARNING: While I did get the idea from a magazine, I do not have specific measurements so hopefully my directions won’t be too scattered for you. But really, this wasn’t hard at all. Just eyeball it, have fun, and use your imagination.

1. Preheat oven to 375*

2. Lightly grease a muffin tin and place circle cut-outs of pie crust that are about 1/4 inch in diameter larger than the bottom of the muffin tin. I used a glass with a wide mouth (about 3 – 3.5 inches) which made a good sized circle to fit in the bottom of a regular sized muffin tin.

3. Cut up veggies or meat of choice and place in the bottom of the pie crusts. I used turkey pepperoni, about 2 little slices for each tart.

4. Spoon on some pizza or marinara sauce. It won’t take much, about 1.5 – 2 T of sauce.

5. Sprinkle about 1 tsp of Parmesan cheese on top of the sauce.

6. Now for the mozzarella cheese. I’d guess about 1 T of shredded cheese. I didn’t have any on hand, only slices, so it came out to about 1/4 slice per tart, cut up.

7. Bake for 15 minutes.

You can enjoy these right away or refrigerate and pack for lunches the next day. Enjoy!

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Strawberry Tart with Basil Cream

I love this tart. In fact I just plain ol’ love pastries so any tart is good for me. The best thing about something like this is that the ingredients are minimal and as long as you keep some refrigerated puff pastry in your freezer you can whip something like this up quickly and customize it to whatever fruit you have on hand. I am a sucker for fresh basil so that’s why I made this particular tart but you can mix fresh mint into your cream, or go wild and experiment with spices and flavors. For example, I see an awesome banana tart with fresh cream whipped with cinnamon and nutmeg and drizzled with some caramel or chocolate sauce (or both!) See how easy that was? Now it’s your turn 🙂

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

1 cup heavy cream

4 or 5 T powdered sugar

1/3 cup fresh basil, chopped

1 pint strawberries

Preheat oven to 350*. Roll out pastry sheet on a floured surface until thin, about the size of a square foot. I do this because I have a great 14-inch square-shaped baking sheet, but you can do a rectangle shape if you like. Trim about an inch off the edges of the sheet and use a little water to build the edges up a bit.

Line baking sheet with parchment paper and place the sheet on top. Make sure you prick the pastry with a fork so the air can flow. If you’ve ever missed this step you’ll know the pastry will balloon up. It’s fixable for this tart but not ideal.

Bake for 20 minutes then allow to cool completely.

While the pastry sheet is cooling you can whip up the cream using a mixmaster or electric beaters with the powdered sugar until it’s set and just beginning to form soft peaks. Gently fold in the basil (save some for sprinkling on top of the tart).

Spreading the cream might be a little hard if it gets too stiff (mine did) and especially if the shell wasn’t pricked with a fork prior to baking and is breaking up (guilty), so I used a small ice cream scoop to place blobs of the cream all over the pastry. Then I used a slightly wet silicone spreader to gently spread the cream out. Mine came out pretty thick but I really liked it anyway.

Slice the strawberries and place them all over the top of the tart. I put mine in rows, overlapping each edge, covering the whole thing. You can put your strawberries on however you like.

Sprinkle any remaining bits of fresh basil on the top.

Enjoy!

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Mini Apple Tarte Tatins

This was a twist on a recipe I’ve been meaning to do for some time. Lately I’ve not been turning out the best stuff- it’s like I’ve lost my mojo. I know, right? How does that happen?? So needless to say I’m not very motivated by lengthy recipe directions. Originally I meant to make an Apple Slab Pie, which was on my menu for the month, but instead I decided to do these cute and easy little tarts.

1 sheet puff pastry

3 apples

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 stick butter, divided

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp cinnamon sugar

Vanilla ice cream, for serving

1. Preheat oven to 375*.

2. Peel, core, and cut apples into 3 rings. Toss with cinnamon sugar and set aside.

3. Roll out thawed pastry sheet and cut into 9 equal squares. Wrap each apple ring.

4. Get skillet over medium heat and put in sugar and 1/2 the butter. Bring to light boil and caramelize into a syrup.

5. Place apples smooth side down into caramel syrup and cook a few minutes.

6. Melt remaining butter and mix with vanilla. Pour evenly over the upsides of the apple tarts (the side where the pastry is folded under).

7. Place whole pan into oven for about 30-45 minutes, or until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender.

8. At this point you could carefully flip each tart over and give it about 10 more minutes in the oven to get some of that caramelized syrup on the top side, or spoon it over the top from the bottom of the pan.

9. Serve top side up where the folds have baked up a little. Serve with ice cream if desired.

This recipe is featured on Full Plate Thursday @ Miz Helen’s Country Cottage! 🙂

Asparagus Feta Tart

This was a yummy side dish for my Poached Salmon with Sour Cream Dill Dressing and a fun way to get the kids to eat their veggies. We are all feta fans here, me especially, but you could use just about any strong-flavored cheese you like. Feta doesn’t melt well, so if you think you might have a problem with your asparagus rolling off the tart, you may want to use Gruyere or Jarslberg or something else equally yummy.

1 sheet puff pastry, thawed

4 oz. feta cheese, crumbled fine

1 bunch asparagus*

EVOO

salt & pepper

Preheat oven to 400*. Unfold the pastry sheet and roll out to about a square foot in size. I roll it out over parchment paper so that I can easily transfer it to a baking sheet. Just flip it over and slowly peel the paper off.

Fork the dough all over so it won’t rise during baking. Bake for about 10 minutes or until very light brown.

While it’s baking prepare your asparagus. *I used rather fat ones because that’s what was available, which were fine, but thin ones crisp up so nicely in the oven. That would be my preference and recommendation. Cut off the ends and try to get all the stalks as even in size as possible. Toss with EVOO and salt & pepper. You could even throw a little minced garlic or garlic powder in there if you’re feeling frisky.

Remove the baking sheet from the oven and sprinkle the feta pieces evenly. Then top with the asparagus spears, arranging them by alternating tips and ends.

Bake for about 20 more minutes.

Caramel Praline Tart

Did you know that April is National Pecan Month and yesterday was National Pecan Day? In honor of the pecan I’ve decided to share this re-post worthy recipe with you. Make it soon. It’s awesome 🙂

The Home Heart

I’ve been waiting quite some time to be able to share this awesome tart with you. I made one weeks ago, but alas, it fell apart in my fridge, and I was so angry I picked it up in chunks and threw it across my kitchen. I had streaks of sticky caramel and clumps of pralines and pie crust everywhere! It took me two hours to clean my kitchen (I was surprised to see some of the places that caramel got into!) and another hour and half to clean out my refrigerator. The moral to this story is: It may make you feel really good to throw food, but you will have to clean it up, and that doesn’t feel so good.

*Sigh. K, I have to admit, I didn’t care about having to clean it up- throwing it was extremely therapeutic 🙂

Without further ado, I give you an…

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Valentine’s Day Yumminess ~ 2013

Round-ups are a great way to gather many wonderful recipes for a specific event all at once. While I don’t claim to have the absolute best recipes in the blogging world, I do happen to have some tried-and-true (that means approved by the boys) that I’m sure you will enjoy. If you’re looking for some new yummy things to treat your family with, take a look at these. You may just approve them as well.

Coconut Cream Tart

 

Red Velvet Brownies

Chocolate Strawberry Whoopie Pies

Chocolate Mousse Napoleon

Easy Eclair Dessert

Mud Pie

 

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Ribbon Dessert

Caramel Praline Tart