Fruit Tarts & Hot Pot

My cousins visited us last week for their spring break, which meant a few things: I would inevitably gain 5 lbs, my liver would start crying by the end of the week, I would be exhausted, I would have had a lot of fun - and I would be making a fruit tart...or two.

I think the first time I stumbled upon this Nestle mini custard fruit tarts recipe was for Thanksgiving a few years back. I did do the mini version for that meal, but afterwards, figured it was too much of a pain in the butt to make so many mini pie shells, and decided to combine them all into one.  And it's so easy, that I have made it many times, especially when I am with my cousin (as shown in my post where I made a version of it in Berlin). As for the graham cracker crust, it's really so easy - mix melted butter, sugar, and crushed graham crackers together and press them into a pie plate. I don't remember where I read this tip, but to crush the crackers (and this applies to crushing of any cookies or crackers that are not too hard), I put them in a Ziplock baggie and crushed them with a rolling pin. Sometimes it gets a little tricky/messy if a jagged edge gets caught in the bag and makes a hole, but this time was pretty smooth sailing.

 

Had enough to make 2

While I baked the shells (for less than 10 minutes), it was time to start on the custard, which also takes about 10 minutes.

 

 

After filling in each pie shell with the custard, it was time to leave it in the fridge to congeal. Apparently the smell of the baking crust and the simmering custard woke up the sleepy nappers...who also woke up very hungry. As it was a rather cold March evening, we decided to have hot pot for dinner, where the troops were put to work for their own dinners.

very hungry squirrel

 

Heating up the spicy soup base

Hot Pot Spread!

After a brief digestion period watching the OSU NCAA semi-finals, which they lost =(, I topped the pies with were-frozen mixed berries, and we proceeded to finish both that night...we are quite the fatty family =)