The origins of this hor d’oeuvre are quite interesting.  I am usually very good about not only writing down a detailed grocery list, but also double checking on amounts and types of ingredients I need before going grocery shopping.  This particular Saturday morning I walked in to HEB on the cell phone and spent the next half hour on it…while shopping.  It should come as no surprise that I got home with 4 wrong ingredients…2 of which were needed for this recipe.  Just my luck.

I did a little tweaking and ended up with a decent replacement.  This did not require too much culinary skill due to the use of puff pastry.  I could have put dirt in these pastry shells and they would have tasted good.

The origninal recipe was a goat cheese and rosemary tart.  I was suppossed to buy puff pastry sheets, but grabbed the puff pastry shells; mistake # 1.  Then the goat cheese, which should have been plain, had red piquillo peppers in it; mistake # 2.  The mistakes were worth it, though.  I think these individual pastries were better as an hor d’oeuvre than the tart would have been.

1 package frozen puff pastry shells
4-6 oz. goat cheese (any kind!)
2 tablespoons cream
chopped fresh rosemary
grated lemon zest

Preheat oven to 400 F

1. Mix the goat cheese and cream in a small bowl until well combined.  
2. Prepare the pastries according to the package directions on a cookie sheet.
3. Halfway through the baking time (8-12 minutes or until pastries have puffed up), remove the shells from the oven and pop the centers out.  
4. Fill each shell with a rounded teaspoon of the goat cheese.  
5. Top each with a sprinkle of rosemary and lemon zest.
6. Bake until shells are golden brown and cheese is warm; 8 minutes more