Apple Cream Cheese Danish

We have all these apples from our apple picking trip and I was aching to make some delicious pastry.  Then I found this recipe and went for it.  It was a bit more tricky than I imagined, because I had bought a box of two big puff pastry sheets, and they didn't roll out as well as I had hoped.  So I just kind of winged it, and with the leftover filling made blintzes, yum!  Zak devoured these, and I did my best not to eat them all in one day.  But they are certainly tasty!

24 oz. cottage cheese
3 apples (peeled, cored & thinly sliced)
1 tsp. lemon juice
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
17 1/2 oz. puff pastry, thawed
3 Tbl. sugar (decoration)

1.  Place cottage cheese in a strainer lined with cheesecloth or heavy paper towel; pat dry and set aside.
2.  Place apples in a bowl, sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent browning.
3.  Combine cream cheese, drained cream cheese, 1/2 c. sugar, egg, vanilla in a bowl.  Mix with electric mixer for 1 - 2 minutes on medium high, until almost smooth.
4.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees, line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
5.  Cut each of the puff pastry sheets into 9 pieces, to have 18 total (make sure they are relatively square-shaped).  Roll pieces out, one by one, to make about 5 x 5 inch squares.  Avoid rolling with too much pressure or over the edges, to ensure they puff up.
6.  Place a square in front of you (so it's diamond-shaped).  Spoon a generous of cheese filling, leaving some room at the top and bottom edges.  Fan out 3 - 5 apple slices in the center.  Bring the left and right corners together to meet in the center and pinch to seal.
7.  Transfer danish to baking sheet; repeat with remaining pastries.  Sprinkle sugar over each bundle and bake until pastry is golden brown, about 20 minutes.

mine didn't turn out super pretty, but they sure were tasty, warm or room temperature!