Mini Tartlettes of Chicken Sausage, Spinach & Cheese

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These savory pastries aren't for the kids. Not that there's anything nefarious contained therein. Kids just expect their tarts sweet.... you know..... like grandma. And, not that you'd make grandma into a tart. Well, unless of course, she's already a tart. Anyways, I digress. Where was I? Oh yeah.

Early last year I caught an episode of Easy Italian with Giada De Laurentiis of Food Network fame (don't spit your venom just yet, food snobs.... in fact, I happen to love the Food Network! So there!). That day, she made her Cheese & Spinach Puff Pastry Pockets. If you have a chance, please make these. They are such the crowd pleaser.

Well, since then I've made it several times, each being a different incarnation of the basic recipe. Sometimes with meat, other times without. I've even added some caramelized onions and garlic, sauteed the meat in white wine, etc. The ones you see above were made of leftover filling of a chicken sausage pastry I made several weeks ago. Don't worry -- it actually tasted pretty good still!

Nevertheless, each time I'm left with unused filling I'd freeze it until that one day would come where I'd thaw it from its slumber and surprise some unsuspecting guests. "Heeeeeere's Grandma!!!" Kidding.

Anyway, that day was this morning. And, that guest was .... me. The best kind, of course.

I wanted to bring a lunch to work today so I decided to put yet another spin on Giada's recipe. This time instead of using store bought puff-pastry, I decided to make my own pie crust or "pâte brisée" as they would say in French cuisine talk.

Making your own is wicked easy and, in general, only uses about 4 ingredients: flour, cold butter, a dash of salt & ice water. Cuisine-French.com has the details on how to make basic pie crust complete with pictures & video.... so you CAN'T mess this one up.

Since I didn't have a lot of filling, I cut the pie crust recipe portions in half so I can make 4 servings. When the pie crust was ready, I cut it into 4 flat circles and placed them into muffin molds. I dolloped the leftover fillings into each mold and covered it all pretty like with little folds.

In order to brown the exterior a bit more I brushed the outside with an egg wash (one scrambled egg yolk). Then I popped it into a pre-heated oven of 350 degrees for 20 minutes and voila! Lunch is served! Well, at least mine was. ;)