One of Pickle's favorite things to eat at Café Soleil is their herbed chevre croissant. While I wish I could craft these gorgeous, cheesy, roasted tomato-stuffed delights at home, I am not a pastry chef, but I am a mom who loves to recreate beloved foodstuff while simplifying the process. I've replaced handcrafted croissant dough with frozen puff pastry and swapped the oven-dried tomatoes with sauteed ones. It is a spot-on rendition in taste, but not shape.

Market Tomato and Goat Cheese Tart

Ingredients:
1 sheet puff pastry, defrosted in the fridge
1 large, in-season tomato or 3 roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped
1 clove garlic, minced or grated on a microplane
1 tablesppon thyme leaves
1 tablespoon olive or grapeseed oil
kosher salt and fresh black pepper to taste
4 oz fresh goat cheese, at room temperature – I use the fabulously creamy DreamFarm chevre
4 oz, grated nutty, aged cheese, like Pleasant Ridge Reserve or Marieke Gouda
1 egg, whisked with 1 teaspoon water

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Heat oil over medium heat until shimmery. Add tomatoes and saute until juices start to run.
Add garlic and thyme and cook another minute.

Remove from heat to cool.

On a flour-dusted counter or board, roll out puff pastry until its roughly 14 inches by 11 inches. Chill for 15 minutes it if gets too soft. Cut pastry in half. Score a 1/2 border on one piece of pastry. In the inside rectangle, spread goat cheese over entire surface. Place back in the refrigerators until the tomatoes are ready.

Spread tomatoes over the goat cheese and then sprinkle with the grated cheese. Egg wash the border left on the puff pastry and then top it with the other piece. Press and seal edges together, then use a pastry wheel to cut the egdes so they look uniform. if you don't have a pastry wheel, a knife will work too. Cut three small slits on the top to allow steam to escape. Egg wash the entire tart and place in the preheated oven for 18 minutes, or until golden brown and puffed.

Cut into individual portions.
Serve warm or at room temperature.

Since I work full time, Pickle goes to daycare, or as we call it at home, "school." I pack his snacks and lunches for school every day and it's really tough sometimes to ensure that he's getting what he needs nutrition-wise while not consuming all of my free time cooking specific meals for him. This is a great article to quantify how much food a toddler needs. It's not as much as you think.

In one of my blogs, I shared with you my pancake recipe. Well, I have to say that "cakes" in general are a great way to pack in a meal's nutritional requirements of protein, dairy, vegetable/fruit and grains:
Fish cakes (salmon, tuna, cod, tilapia, shrimp)
Bean cakes (lentils and chickpeas, too)
Grain cakes (bulgur, quinoa, whole-wheat couscous, wheatberries, brown rice)
Veggie cakes (roasted mushrooms, eggplants, squash, potato, zucchini, carrot, turnip, parsnip, the possibilities are endless!)

Here's a link to a family favorite from Everyday Food: veggie burgers. These are very versatile and can easily accommodate what you have in your pantry and fridge. Switch the pinto beans with black beans; quinoa for bulgur; unsweetened almond butter for tahini; the list goes on and on for substitutions.

Inspired by some crab cakes I recently made for Chris's birthday, I am working on a fish cake recipe that I'll post soon.

So here are some recent lunches/snacks Rhys has taken to school with him:
3-4 RP's Pasta Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli — diced into bite-size pieces
One hard-boiled egg, diced
Raspberries, quartered
P.M. snack: diced bananas dusted in pulverized whole-wheat graham crackers

Whole-wheat cinnamon-banana pancakes, cubed
Shredded cheddar cheese from Cedar Grove Dairy
Strawberries, diced
P.M. snack: blueberry applesauce and Cascadian Farm Organic Os (contains no sugar)

Ricotta Frittata with spinach and red peppers, cubed
Diced avocado
Blueberries, quartered.
P.M. snack: whole-wheat graham crackers with cream cheese (broken into small pieces) and diced melon

Other lunch-time helpers I love:
Box graters: great for grating more than cheese, especially those things that fall into the “choking hazard” category — apples, pears, carrots, zucchini, sweet potato.
Electric Scale: helps you “eyeball” accurate portions
Steamer-basket insert: steaming preserves a lot of the vitamins in vegetables

Making lunch for a toddler who only wants to feed himself is tough. So many options fall into the “choking hazard” category and others are on the just-too-messy side of self-feeding (um, soup). Plus, you want food that is nutritious and meets their daily requirements of fruits, veggies, dairy and protein. Woo, I’m overwhelmed already!

Here is my fail-safe, go-to recipe that can be modified to your child’s likes and dislikes: pancakes.

Yep, whole-wheat pancakes filled with fruits or vegetables, dairy or protein – the options are endless. I usually grate the fillings, which means you don’t have to pre-cook them. I make a big batch, freeze them in waxed paper bags housed in a freezer Ziploc and voila! Instant breakfast, lunch or dinner. Just pop them in the toaster on defrost and cut them into bite-size cubes. I don't serve these with syrup or anything, except the carrot ones; they just screamed "raita."

Here are some flavor combinations Pickle loves:
Apple/Pear and Cheddar from Cedar Grove Cheese
Zucchini and Marieke Gouda from Holland’s Family Farm
Carrot and Cumin, served with a cilantro-mint raita (yogurt sauce)
Banana and nutmeg
Sweet potato and cinnamon

Still tinkering on some protein-based pancakes … I’ll keep you posted.

Master recipe for whole-wheat pancakes
Ingredients:
2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon kosher salt

1-½ cups buttermilk, preferably organic
1 extra-large egg
3 tablespoons melted butter, cooled

¾ cup of your choice of fillings – use the large holes on your box grater for the fillings; the exception are carrots and sweet potato; I use a fine grater for those.

Olive oil for frying the pancakes

Directions:
Mix dry ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. In a large measuring cup, add buttermilk, egg and butter. Slowly add the liquids to the dry ingredients, mixing only until just combined. Add the fillings slowly, checking consistency as you go.

Note: if you want to have super-fluffy pancakes, you can separate the yolk and white of the egg and whisk the whites until soft peaks form; then fold in whites once the liquids are incorporated.

Heat griddle or sauté pan over medium-low heat; add oil and cook in batches until bubbles appear on surface; flip and cook 1-2 more minutes. I use an ice cream scoop to get consistently sized cakes (about 1/4 cup).