Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Easy Ollie Tarts

Like many of you, I have a picky eater in my Ollie. I don't know when it happened, but one day he was 12 months old and eating diced roast beef and stewed tomatoes right off of my plate to being an almost-three year old who eats nothing but peanut butter sandwiches.

I have been trying to involve him in meal prep to get him interested, and so today when realized I had leftover homemade pie dough in the fridge and some blueberries, an almost over-ripe peach and a few scant apples, I decided to make tarts.

First, I separated the dough into pieces about the size of a golf ball. Then Ollie and I patted them down on a baking sheet. I then finessed them a little so that they had raised edges, and would hold the fillings in a little better.



Next, Ollie dropped blueberries into the tarts, and counted as he went along. It is so funny when he gets past ten: "eleven, twelve, thirteen, five-teen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty-ten ..." Eeeee, yikes. We are working on it.


I had cut up the peach and the apples before hand. I have found that when working on anything with my little man, (whose attention span is shorter than the tail on a bear), everything must be ready ahead of time. (Honestly, he was already getting a little bored by this point.)


The bonus? He just started eating apple slices! That's right, no cajoling, pleading, I'm-on-my-knees-begging was involved. Ahhh. Spontaneity. Love it.


Ah-hem . . . yes, that is the same hand he was jut eating apple slices with that is now putting them in the tart. Hey, I just have to put it out there--if you are coming to my house for tarts, I can't guarantee that there will be no toddler contamination involved!


Yes, yes, I prettied them up a bit, and sprinkled some sugar and cinnamon on them.


Just look at how precious the peach one is!


I put them in a 375 degree oven for 25 minutes. And here they are: JUST STUNNING!


And lookey here! They taste good too!


Happy baking!

3 comments:

  1. Mmmmmm! You know, Ollie sounds very typical of the toddler/preschooler finickyness. Both my boys were good eaters until maybe 2.5, the BOOM, the pickiness kicked in. My older son is 7 now and it seems like I can shovel food into him fast enough!

    Those tarts are adorable! Glad Ollie loved eating them. Funny, I made a strawberry-rhubarb pie with my 4yo today!

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  2. Dickens--so there is a light at the end of the picky-eating tunnel? Seriously it just kills me how picky he is--I hate to bring him to my Dad's--we were raised on all organic, home grown food and my son only wants PB sandwiches. ACK!

    O.J.--thanks!

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