Things That Are Wonderful by Jacqueline Austin

Read it, see it, post it--if it's wonderful

Every month I go to this book club.  We all bring food.  I try to make my food thematic to the book.  For last night’s book discussion—Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson—I made vegetable galettes.  Galettes are just free form pies.  These are both easy and gourmet.  People go utterly crazy about galettes, as they’re also delicious. 

Galette 101

The basic recipe for a galette is this.  For each galette:

1 crust

1 filling

Crust Choices:

A) Trader Joes pre-made pie crust.  Roll in some chopped sage or other herbs if you want to knock people out.

B) Gluten Free, Wheat Free options.  Instead of ripping your hair out and being a hater, make either a polenta layer (cornmeal, almond milk, salt, pepper and herbs heated together), or go all out and make something out of ground almonds (almond meal, buckwheat flour, a little almond milk, herbs, salt and pepper, mushed into a ball and then rolled out).

Filling Choices:

A) Vegan: Vegetable Stew (see last post).  If the sauce is too runny, thicken with a little almond butter.

B) Dairy: Butternut squash, goat cheese, sage

Cut up a butternut squash into little bitty pieces.  Throw on some olive oil and a little sea salt.  Roast at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, till the squash is brown at the edges but not burnt.  Take out, and combine with the goat cheese and chopped sage.  If you want a more complex flavor, throw in a little garlic, some chopped green onions and some parsley, but none of these are essential.

Finishing The Galette:

This is free form and artistic.  Use either a normal baking pan or, if you want to wow the crowd, Grandma’s Le Creuset casserole dish.  Put your crust on the bottom of the pan and shape it into something pretty. 

Glob your filling onto the crust, leaving a 2” border.  Now fold up the crust around the outside of the filling, so that the sides are covered, and there’s a nice outline of crust around the top.

Decorate with fresh herbs.  I like to make patterns.

Bake at 375 degrees for about an hour, until the crust is cooked through and golden brown.

Vegetable Stew

Olive oil

1 onion, cut into long strips

Red, green and yellow pepper, cut into long strips

3 cloves garlic, crushed

4 yellow squash, cut into half-circles

3 bok choy, chopped roughly

Fennel seed

Sea salt, fresh ground pepper

Cook together until happy.  Eat and enjoy.