As American as Apple.....Tarts?

I have a confession to make: 

Pie does Not happen at my house. 

My kitchen skills are so-so.  I am quite good with bread and cookies and cakes (although not decorating them).  I can make a mean salad.  I  am able to cook veggies any way you want them--boiled, steamed, baked, roasted.  And I am often kinda-sorta brilliant with soup, if I do say so myself.  But I cannot put a proper meal on the table, and I cannot make pie.  You've gotta be honest about where your talents lie:  for me, pie is Not It.

But it's the 4th of July.  And there were seriously no goodies in the house.  No picnic food; no potato salad; certainly no hot dogs (not even the carrot variety).  :::::sigh:::::  As usual, it's just me celebrating all by my lonesome but I wanted a treat anyway.   I grumped and grumbled for awhile, and then I looked into the still fairly empty freezer.  There it was:  Holiday Rescue in a Box.  Half a packet of puff pastry leftover from Christmas.  Yay!

And here's what happened next, recipe-wise:

I de-frosted the pastry (easily done; just let the package sit on the counter for an hour).  Then I got a couple of clearance sale Fuji apples out of the fridge.  I pared, cored, and roughly chopped them.  I mixed up brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, freshly ground nutmeg, and salt.  Then I tossed the apples with the sugar mixture.  I spread out the sheet of puff pastry but I didn't bother to roll it out (although any proper set of directions would tell you to do precisely that).  I cut the pastry into six pieces and stretched each out a bit before I placed them in the cups of a buttered muffin tin.  I portioned out the apples and sugar into the cups and added a teaspoon of margarine to each.  Then I folded the corners of the pastry inward and pinched them closed.  I melted about a tablespoon of margarine and poured it over the tops of the six little tarts.  The oven was pre-heated to 375.  I baked the tarts for 25 minutes until they were nicely golden and crispy.

Yes, there are only four on the plate.  I already ate two!  And I'm not a bit sorry.  They are so good!  Just the treat I wanted for today.   And, yes, they are not particularly pretty--kindly remember that I can't do pastry; I was more interested in function than form anyhow and, in that sense, they are just right.

Now, if I had had different ingredients, I might have done other things like maybe adding raisins or berries or nuts.  I might have put a dollop of cream cheese in there, too.  Or I could have served them with sour cream on top.  (Yeah, I completely prefer sour cream where Everyone Else uses whipped cream.  Go figure.  Odd Me.  I especially love it on strawberries.)  There's a lot you can do with simple fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants cooking ideas.  It's kinda more fun sometimes than using an actual recipe. 

So there you have it.  As American as Apple Tarts.  Perfect for Independence Day.

Life is good.