How much fun can a (relative sane) person have with a box of frozen puff pastry? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

I spent most of my adult life avoiding puff pastry. Well, I'm always happy to eat it, but make it? Not so much. I made it from scratch exactly once, a hundred years ago; that was enough. I'm not the type of person to spend endless hours rolling out layers of dough and butter and chilling it and waiting and rolling, etc. etc.

Until very recently, it never occurred to me that there were good brands of pre-made frozen puff pastry made with actual butter rather than hydrogenated vegetable oils. 

I know, right?! How out of it can a person get?!

Some months ago, I happened upon a box of frozen puff pastry in the freezer case at Trader Joe's that boasted an all-butter situation, snapped it up, stuck it in my freezer and nearly forgot about it. Then, when I was visiting friends in London last month, my dear friend Jenni’s wonderful sister Alison invited us for dinner. It one of these off-the-cuff affairs for 20 or so. What I love about the way these girls entertain is that they don't stress (even when 20 people are coming!); they don't worry if everything's not ready when people start arriving. Sometimes Jenni doesn't even start cooking until people start walking in the door! She and Alison understand that the important thing is to hang out with friends and family, and whatever winds up on the table will be delicious just because. 

They also happen to have some very good ideas up their sleeves. On this particular evening – a regular weekly Friday night dinner with extended family and friends – Alison pulled a savory tart out of the oven, placed it on a table out in the garden, and wheeled a pizza cutter through it to slice it into hors d'oeuvre bites. 

The thing looked so delicious, I was mesmerized. Free-form, golden-crusted, beautifully messy, it was strewn with greens and mushrooms and slices of some kind of marvelous-looking washed-rind cheese melted into it. It was even more delicious than it looked – some kind of serious umami savory action on that perfect, flaky crust. I stayed there, parked next to it, trying with all my might not to eat piece after piece until it was demolished.

After showering her with compliments, I asked how she made it. "Frozen puff pastry!" she said. "All butter."

That was then (about a month ago). Now, four savory tarts, three fruit tarts and a set of cheese straws later, I can't imagine life without a box of the stuff in my freezer. At. All. Times.

So far, I have found three brands. Perhaps there are more out there. Both the Trader Joe's and the Dufour Pastry Kitchens' brands are far superior to the Pepperidge Farms non-butter frozen puff pastry I used to use occasionally in the past (that's the one with the hydrogenated vegetable oil; it also includes high-fructose corn syrup). The Dufour Pastry Kitchens classic puff pastry contains only butter, unbleached unbromated flour, water, salt and lemon juice. It's not inexpensive: I paid $10.99 for a 14-ounce box at my local Whole Foods Market and $10.49 for a box at my local Central Market. The Trader Joe's pastry was nearly as flaky and delicious, and much less expensive: $3.99 for an 18-ounce box. The Dufour brand is one single large rectangle, which comes folded; the Trader Joe's brand is two rectangular pieces, wrapped separately, which is nice (you can defrost one at a time); they come rolled.

Just one problem with the Trader Joe's brand: According to a clerk at my local store, the chain only sells it during the last quarter of the year, presumably for fall and holiday baking. So unless you keep a box in your freezer for more than six months, you can forget about it for summer baking. (Mr. Joe, please change your policy! If you do, I'll make you a summer tart!)

A third brand, White Toque, was $12.99 for a one-pound box at Whole Foods, but this brand is two rounds – which struck me as less wonderful for a savory tart to cut in small rectangles to eat as pre-dinner nibbles, but very nice for a fruit tart. The White Toque brand – which I've only spotted once – did not rise as high as either the Dufour or Trader Joe's brand, but it's possible it was because my refrigerator died, and after defrosting it sat in a less-than-optimal temperature for more than a few hours. I will give it another try next time I find it. Still, it worked just fine for a cherry-plum tart that I will blog about soon.

First I need to tell you the two ways all-butter frozen puff pastry has changed my life (and no, I'm not exaggerating). 

The first is the savory tart. I managed to approximate Alison's, although Alison used a really nice aged washed-rind goat cheese on hers, and I haven't been able to find anything like it 'round these parts.

But the great news is once you grasp how to put one of these tarts together, you can make one out of just about any kind of summer veg. The general idea is this: Thaw the pastry, unwrap it, and fold up the edges to make a rim, painting a little egg wash on them if you want glossy look. Make a filling of sautéed veg, add a couple of eggs beaten with a little cream or half and half, and either put some grated or crumbled cheese in the egg (feta, goat cheese, cheddar, etc.) or strew crumbled feta or goat cheese on top. Pop it in the oven. So easy.

You can riff on it endlessly, changing up the cheese or the sautéed veg, adding sliced fresh or chopped sun-dried tomatoes. It always turns out great, even if you're in such a hurry that you make a terrible mess of it – as I did with a zucchini, tomato and okra version in which I used too much egg and had a sloppy a edge, so egg spilled out all over the parchment.

It was still pretty fabulous. (For that one I sliced the okra in half vertically and grilled them before laying them atop the tart, along with sliced fresh tomatoes, before popping it in  the oven.)

The point is, these savories are so easy and impressive that they have already become a go-to appetizer for me for laid-back summer entertaining. A glass of rosé, a slice of savory tart – who needs anything else?

OK, here's the other way in which all-butter frozen puff pastry changed my life: They are brilliant to use for summer fruit tarts, including those that star unbaked fruit, like berries.  

Until I learned the joys of frozen all-butter puff pastry, I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to make a good tart using fresh strawberries. All you do is make a quick pastry cream – which is way less involved than you might think (much less tricky than making most custards), blind-bake a crust, spread the pastry cream on top, and cover with berries. If you want to be fancy you can melt some fruit jelly and glaze the berries, but you don't have to. 

I also made a pretty wonderful tart using mixed berries – blackberries, blueberries and raspberries. That one is super easy because you don't have to stem or slice or pit anything -- just toss the berries with a little orange liqueur before dropping them onto the pastry cream. 

I'm thinking it could be the perfect, patriotic-hued dessert to serve on the Fourth. Or for Bastille Day! What the recipe? Here you go. 

RECIPE: Savory Summer Tart with Chard and Mushrooms

RECIPE: Easy Berry Tart