Mini Tart Me Blue

This is my first made from scratch hand picked blueberry pie filling. The blueberries grow at Eckards Farm,Dora, Missouri .You go and pick and get charged $10 per gallon. It is hot buggy work but you can get there in the early morning to pick. And they supply the buckets and bags. We bring coolers with ice and go with a church group. It is a lot of walking, standing and more walking. We pick, pack and go find a place to grab some lunch after. Sometimes a storm comes up and we have to pick faster to get out of the fields. The farm is only open for about 2 weeks for prime picking in the late spring.

After we get home I wash and de-stem the berries and pack them in vac-u-seal freezer bags and date stamp them. These berries were from 2015 and very fresh. We bought about 10 gallons of berries and filled our freezer door. I made some of them into pie filling from an old 1930's Fannie Farmer cookbook. It is simple and easy to make. 

I made 4 batches of pie crust with Irish butter and our own bacon lard from a locally butchered pig.

The mini pie crust recipe is the one from Alton Brown's recipe. I do add lemon powder and lemon peel and a spritz of bitters to give it a kick. The star tarts are filled with plain sour cherries from Aldi's that were in a jar. I cooked them down into filling. I find that mini tarts are the perfect size to pick up and eat. No plates needed. People can pick and eat and only use a napkin. The tarts are portable so they can walk around and chat and eat their snack. These are not too sweet and are good for portion control.

I learned that 4 batches of pie crust and you still might be short. I only had a palm of dough left and made strips to keep the blueberry filling in the tarts. They did not look as nice but they tasted great. I took them to our church coffee and not a single one was left. I am not a fan of cherry and blueberry pies. My husband thinks I should make what I love. I will have to try lemon custard and apple next. At least I have the pie crust down after years of practicing so many kinds. It is also nice to share these tarts with our church bunch. There is no waste and everyone is happy. Now if I only had a self cleaning kitchen I would be all set.