Blueberry Tarts

Here we are at Monday morning again – why do the weekends have to go so fast?  Both Saturday and Sunday I woke up so late that I only ate brunch and no lunch.  Saturday was a bagel sammie:

And Sunday Tony made me eggs with hash browns (made with a shredded baked potato – so good!) and half a bagel.  Tony makes the best eggs!

I tried to take it easy this weekend with my bronchitis, but I just couldn’t stay out of the kitchen.  I still had some Michigan blueberries, so I decided to make blueberry tarts.

makes 8:  229 calories, 13 fat, 25 carbs, 1.4 fiber and 3 protein

Ingredients for Dough:

• 1.25 flour
• 1 stick of frozen butter, shredded
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 Tablespoon sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons ice cold water

For the filling:

• 4 tablespoons room temperature light cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons fat free half and half
• 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 2 cups frozen (or fresh) blueberries

I learned this secret a long time ago – to shred frozen butter and you’ll have a nice, flakey crust.  Using a fork or pastry cutter, mix all the ingredients together, just until the dough comes together.

I weighed the dough to get 8 equal balls to roll out.  I didn’t refrigerate the dough like you do with normal pie crust, just mix and roll.

Combine the cream cheese, half and half and powdered sugar together.  Roll out 4 of the dough balls, put on a baking sheet, add 1 Tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture, then 1/4 cup of blueberries on each tart.  Simply bring the sides of the dough together in the middle.  Brush with egg wash and sprinkle some coarse sugar over the top.

These were really good – not too sweet, which is why I liked them – I don’t really like overly sweet desserts.

Hannah was in town again, so I met up with her and her boyfriend at the Farmers Market.  I got some granola, some Mirai Corn from Twin Garden Farms (best corn on the cob ever!) and some garlic and dill cheese curds. 

Then we went to the grocery store – holy cow was it busy, I thought they must be giving away food!  As luck would have it, they were having a one day special and I got tomatoes for .29 cents a pound.  All of my August challengers have a chance to win four jars of salsa from me, as well as a case of yogurt from Chobani.  My cough is still here, so it will be another rest day for me.

You want to keep as much of the charred skins as you can.  After I take everything off the grill, I’ll go back with my tongs and pull off all the charred tomato skins.  The char gives it a smoky flavor.

I made two batches of my baja fresh salsa, and one batch of my grilled cherry salsa.

We spent time on Sunday watching the Little League World Series – these kids are great ball players.  We watched the Japan and Chinese Tapei game last night that went to 10 innings before Japan got a home run with a runner on.  So fun.

My grocery store had non-frozen turkey breasts so I picked one up to grill and to have some turkey meat for sandwiches later in the week.  I just put some lemon slices and rosemary up under the skin, put some olive oil over the skin and just put salt and pepper on it.  We took it off at 175 degrees, thinking we overcooked it, but it was tender and delicious.

I also let it rest for about 20 minutes, which is sometimes hard to wait!

And I bought our dog a new toy when I was at Goodwill last week.  He hasn’t taken a liking to it like I thought he would so every chance I get, I put it next to him.

One day I’ll get him to like it!  I love how his other toys are in the background.

I somehow lost 1.4 this week, even without much exercise – but my appetite has been off since I’ve had this cough, so that could be a reason too.  I think I’ll have to have my doctor prescribe another Z-pak, I would have thought for sure my cough would be gone by today.

I have delicious chicken and rice soup for lunch – I’ll post the recipe tomorrow – so easy and delicious.

How was your weekend?  Make it a great day.