Galette

Breakfast Galette

09.12.2011 7 Comments

I was giving Tater a bath tonight and thinking about how much I love bath time. Thinking, "It’s the little things.."

Little things? I thought about all the things that we always refer to as the "Little things," warm bed, hot bath, clean clothes. Sure they’re little, If you HAVE them.

If you don’t have them they are huge gigantic things. The biggest things ever.

I wonder how many women all over the world would love nothing more than to give their babies a warm bath, with lots of soap, and then put them to sleep in a clean warm bed. Then I felt like crap for calling it a "little thing," when I what I should have thought was "A thing I have never thought to appreciate because I have always had it and am taking it for granted almost every day- thing."

Why do we have it so backwards? We call water and soap a SMALL thing, and what gets that label of BIG are things like yachts and fancy cars, exotic vacationing.

We are wrong.

You can live your entire life NOT having a yacht and be perfectly happy, it never even occurring to you how incredibly yacht-less you are. Try to do that with water and soap.

Having a baby has turned me into a big weeping mess. It used to take quite a bit to make me cry. I’d hide my dry eyes at weddings, feel like a freak for NOT crying when I watched a show about a baby being born, or when I heard a story that didn’t end well. My internal reaction was more along the lines of, "Am I supposed to cry? When’s lunch?"

Now, I cry over everything. I can’t even watch Undercover Boss without mascara stained cheeks an hour later. And don’t even let me think about Extreme Home Makeover. Mr Fits is the same way, he spent the 20 years previous to Taters birth without one tear and now, when I write the lyrics to Loudon Wainwright’s song, Daughter on his Fathers Day card…

About 4 weeks after Tater was born I read about a charity that gave clean birthing supplies and a new, warm outfit to women in third world countries. About four lines in a side bar and I was a mess. My own birth story, 17 hours of unmedicated natural labor, was still blissfully fresh in my mind. I was so happy that I was able to do it the way I had planed, it never occurred to me that the "lucky" part had nothing to do with my birth plan. I had TEN baby outfits packed in my hospital bag, and there were women out there that didn’t even have ONE! Giving birth with dirty supplies and nothing to put the baby in??!! Ugh. I sobbed. "Little things" my ass.

They way I see it, most of us do have the Big Things. That pair of shoes you can’t afford, the fancy car you will probably never drive, that gorgeous leather sofa: all small things. When you are 80 years old, and you look back on your life, you won’t even remember them.

But what you will remember is the time you spent with your family. And for me, the luxury of Saturday Morning Family Breakfast is a HUGE thing, because I would miss it. I would ache for it if I ever live a life where I can’t do that for my family. But right now, I am grateful and happy to have all the Big Things, and one of those is breakfast.

Breakfast Galette

Crust:

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

6 tbs of butter

6 tbs shortening

1/3 cup ice cold water

Filling:

1/2 a large red bell pepper, chopped (about 1/3 cup)

1/2 cup fresh, chopped spinach

1/4 cup crumbled breakfast sausage, raw, removed from casing (about 4 links)

4 Safest Choice eggs, yolks and whites sperated

1 tsp Kosher salt

1 tsp black pepper

1/4 cup parmesan cheese, shredded

In a food processor, combine 1 1/3 cup flour, salt, sugar, then add the butter and shortening, process until well combined. Add the remaining flour and process again until combined. Transfer to a bowl and add the water with a wooden spoon (don’t add the water while the dough is in the food processor or your dough will be brittle and cracker-like). If the dough isn’t moist enough, you can add more water, a tsp at a time until the consistency is right. Form dough into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours. I like to make the dough the night before, it takes about 10 minutes to throw this together, so it’s easy to do the night before.

Preheat your oven to 375.

Once the dough is chilled, roll into a “rustic” circle. The great thing about a Galette is that an odd shape looks charming, don’t worry about making it too perfect. Transfer to a baking sheet, or a pizza stone, covered with parchment paper.

Top the center with the spinach, bell peppers and sausage.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg whites, salt and pepper. Pour into the center, over the filling (you my need another pair of hands for this) immediately fold up the edges, covering some of the filling but leaving the center open. Sprinkle the top with parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20 minutes or until the whites are set.

Add the yolks to the center, bake again for 3-5 minutes. You still want the yolks to be runny. I just found out about Safest Choice Eggs, they’re pasteurized which removes the risk of salmonella poisoning. One less thing to worry about.

Cut into 4-6 pieces. Serve warm.

Printable version: Breakfast Galette

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Party Food: Mini Galettes {Strawberry Brie & Bacon Goat Cheese}

31.10.2011 18 Comments

The requirements for party food are pretty simple, but hard and fast.

Yummy
Must travel well
Must have the ability to sit at room temperature for extended periods of time
Bonus if it evokes this sentence from at least one other party goer: "Can I get that recipe from you?"

Mini galettes also have the added bonus of being adorable and fairly easy to make. If you want to make them with store bough crust, I may pound on you a little bit. The crust takes about 8 active minutes plus it’s really, really SO much better than store bought.

Feel free to make these your own and use what ever flavor combinations you love.

Miniature Galettes

CRUST

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 sticks of butter

1/3 cup ice cold water

FOR THE STRAWBERRY BRIE

4 oz brie, cut into slices

3/4 cups strawberries, chopped

1 tbs butter, melted

2 tbs sugar

FOR THE BACON GOAT CHEESE

6 strips of bacon, cooked and chopped

3 oz goat cheese, crummbled

1/2 cup fresh spinach, chopped (don’t use frozen, too much water)

Makes 12 (6 of each)

In a food processor, combine 1 1/3 cup flour, salt, sugar and butter, process until well combined. Add the remaining flour and process again until combined. Transfer to a bowl and add the water with a wooden spoon (don’t add the water while the dough is in the food processor or your dough will be brittle and cracker-like). If the dough isn’t moist enough, you can add more water, a tsp at a time until the consistency is right. Form dough into a disk, wrap with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours. You can make this up to 5 days ahead of time, just place the dough, wrapped in plastic wrap, in a large zip lock bag.

Place your chilled dough on a well floured surface. Top with more flour and roll until your dough is fairly thin and even. Cut out 12, 4 inch circles. I didn’t have a biscuit cutter that size so I used a margarita glass.

Place the dough circles on baking sheets that are either covered with parchment paper or sprayed with cooking spray.

Strawberry Brie:

A Trader Joe’s just opened on Friday down the street from my house. I am inappropriately excited about living within walking distance from such a fabulous food source. I bought these cute mini brie wheels. These are also fantastic to make mini baked brie out of, but that is for another post.

I cut each wheel into 3-4 slices. If you don’t live by a Trader Joe’s, you can also just use regular brie and cut it into slices small enough to fit inside the circle.

Place about 1 tbs of brie in the center of 6 of the circles. Top with about 2 tbs of strawberries.

Fold the edges up over the filling, leaving the center open. Pleat and press the edges when necessary.

Brush each of the 6 Mini Galettes with melted butter, sprinkle with about 1 tsp of sugar each.

Bacon Goat Cheese:

For the remaining 6 circles, add about 1-2 tbs of goat cheese to each circle. Top with 1-2 tbs of chopped spinach, sprinkle with bacon.

Fold the edges up over the filling, leaving the center open. Pleat and press the edges when necessary.

Brush the folded edge of each of the 6 Mini Galettes with melted butter.

Bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until the crust is a light golden brown.

Miniature Apple Brown Sugar Galettes

16.09.2011 18 Comments

I figured out how to pronounce Galette. This was becoming an issue for me. How can I go about baking, and writing about, such an amazing food that I can’t even mention in conversation? So I googled it. I found this lovely little website that has a charming French man (just trust me on the charming part) who so beautifully pronounces the word Gal-Let. You’re gonna press play over and over just to make sure he really said Gal-Let and not Guh-Lay. Or maybe that’s just me.

Apple Brown Sugar (Gal-Let) Galettes

For the Crust:

1 1/2 cups flour

2 tbs sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 stick butter

1/4 cup ice cold water

For The FIlling:

4 cups granny smith apples, cored, peeled and sliced

2 tbs fresh squeezed lemon juice

1 cup brown sugar, packed

3 tbs melted butter.

Make the crust:

In a food processor, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Pulse to combine. Add the butter (ice cold and cut into cubes) and process until combined. Add the remaining flour and process until combined. Move dough to a bowl and add the water with a wooden spoon (don’t add the water with the food processor or your dough will turn into a cracker). If your dough is too dry, or two wet, add a bit of water or flour to achieve the right consistency.

Form the dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour.

Once your apples and peeled, cored and sliced, add to a bowl with the lemon juice and toss to combine. Add the brown sugar and butter and toss to combine. Let stand at room temp for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400.

Once your dough is chilled, roll out to an even thickness. Cut out 6 inch circles. Use whatever you have that is round and six inches, I used a small plastic bowl. This recipe will make 6-8 mini Galettes.

Arrange the apples in tight circle in the middle of your dough, leaving a one inch boarder around the edges.

Fold the edges over the filling, leaving the center open.

Brush the remaining brown sugar/butter mixture that your apples were sitting in all over the Galettes and the exposed crust.

Bake at 400 for 28-35 minutes or until golden brown.

Fig and Goat Cheese Galette

09.09.2011 18 Comments

Galettes are such an amazing food. Like a tart or a pizza, only much more elegant and easier to make. This dough came out so beautifully, with a buttery flakiness that could be eaten all on its own. There is a very good chance that this Fall will be filled with galettes, sweet and savory.

Fig and Goat Cheese Galette

CRUST

2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 tsp sugar

1 1/2 sticks of butter

1/3 cup ice cold water

FILLING

1/2 cup ricotta cheese

1 tsp salt

1 tsp pepper

6 figs, sliced

1 tbs raw honey

2 tbs minced red onions

1/2 cup arugula

2 oz goat cheese, crumbled

1 oz prosciutto, chopped.

1 tbs melted butter

Preheat your oven to 375.

Once the dough is chilled, roll into a "rustic" circle. The great thing about a Galette is that an odd shape looks charming, don’t worry about making it too perfect. Transfer to a baking sheet or a pizza stone covered with parchment paper. Spread the ricotta in the middle, leaving about 2-3 inches on all sides bare. Top with salt and pepper. In a bowl, combine the figs, honey and onions, toss to coat. Add the figs to the top of the ricotta, then add the arugula, goat cheese and prosciutto.

Fold the edges into the middle

Brush the crust with melted butter and bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes or until golden brown. I added additional arugula and goat cheese to the top before serving, but this is completely optional.