Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Bento for Baby 56: Zucchini Apricot Muffin with Caramelized Onion Butternut Squash Hand Pie


I made a lovely free-form savory crostata for dinner last night; filled with a bit of ricotta, caramelized onions, butternut squash and blue cheese.  It was rather beautiful, too, I wish I had snapped a picture of it.  For Baby Girl, I used the same crust and fillings to make little hand pies because it's hard for her to eat a wedge of tart.  We use a fantastic whole wheat olive oil dough recipe from the Chocolate and Zucchini blog for many of the savory tarts/crostatas we make in these parts.  However, unlike the blog author, I make the dough in my food processor.  I just mix the dry ingredients in the bowl with the metal blade then pour in the wet ingredients and blend until a ball forms. I love this dough.  It is much healthier than regular pastry dough, it is really quick and easy to make and it is a dream to work with. I've never had difficulties rolling this out or moving it to a tart pan.  And it's delicious, it has a really nice light and flaky texture.  I rarely par bake the crust when using it for a savory tart. For the crostata last night I simply rolled it out into a large circle, layered on the fillings and folded the edges up over the filling and baked it on a preheated baking stone.  To ease the transfer of the crostata to the oven I rolled it out onto a large piece of parchment paper and then just slid the whole thing onto the stone.  

So!  Back to what we're here for - the bento!  I gave baby girl one of the leftover hand pies for her lunch the next day.  I had a taste of the cold tart myself, and it was equally tasty cold as it was warm. With her hand pie I gave her a mix of frozen edamame and peas and one sunbutter oatmeal ball.  For morning snack I packed a zucchini apricot muffin from the freezer along with some strawberries and some frozen mango chunks in the blue silicone cup.  I intended for her to eat some of this fruit with her lunch, too, but I couldn't fit it in that section of her tiffin box.

Supplies similar to those used in this bento:



2 comments:

  1. Love this idea. How long did you bake the hand pie for and at what temp?

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  2. I baked the tart and the hand pies at 400 degrees until lightly browned. I'm not exactly sure of the time, but it wasn't long, about 15 - 20 minutes.

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