Nostalgia

I have a confession to make.  During the first 5-10 years I taught, my breakfast consisted of one of the following: chocolate Pop-Tarts, these Red Baron frozen breakfast pizza things, or the drive-thru at Krystal's. (Sorry, Mom!)  I've never been much for cereal, and as I lived in Florida at the time, the brilliance of oatmeal and its options had not dawned on me yet.  These things were fast, cheap, and tasty.  "Good for me" wasn't at the top of the list when I was still learning how to survive in a classroom without being buried under the avalanche of grading and planning.  I can't quite say what was the catalyst that led me away from my slightly less than healthy breakfasts, but eventually I stopped eating all of them. 

                                          Frozen and waiting to bake
Now for my second confession:  I secretly miss the Pop-Tarts.  Imagine how psyched I was to see a recipe for a home-made version!  I was surfing on Epicurious when it popped (HA!  sorry...) up.  Their version calls for strawberry jam, but really, you can put whatever you want in the middle.  After all, Pop-Tarts are a less perishable version of hand-pies, and pie is only limited by your imagination and taste-buds.  I had Wild Blueberry Jam on hand, so that's what went in ours.  Next up:  Nutella!

                                          Just out of the oven


I opted not to use the Epicurious dough recipe, but only because I had some of Martha Stewart's pate brise already made. They're almost identical, so it wouldn't have made much of a difference; use whatever pie crust recipe you're most comfortable making.  I've included links to both recipes.

                                         This would be one of the smaller versions...
Possibly the best thing?  You can take each through the freezing stage, wrap them up, and bake them off when you'd like a fresh hand pie for dessert.  And just so you know, there wasn't a ton of measuring going on as I rolled out the dough, so I wound up with widely varying sized pastries.  Strangely, they all tasted fine.  (Er, I didn't eat them all myself.  The others who ate them said they were good.  You can ask my husband.)


http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/best-basic-pie-dough
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Strawberry-Pop-Tarts-358235