Peach Galette

One of the easiest summer desserts are fruit galettes.  It takes 5-10 mins to prep and about 40 mins to bake (assuming dough is already made).  Yes, I do use store bought pie dough some times.  It makes things easier when I don't have time to roll out my own.  Or I make the dough ahead of time and break out into hockey puck disk and wrap it in plastic and roll out before use.

Here is all you need...

Ingredients

1 package of pre-made pie dough (your own or store bought)

2 peaches thinly sliced

2 tablespoon of cold butter

3 tablespoon of sugar

Pinch of salt

Egg wash (1 egg and some water or milk)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Roll out the pie dough into about 9 to 10 inches, doesn't have to be perfectly round.  

Arrange the peach slices in a spiral, distributed evenly leaving about about 1 1/2 inches of end pie dough open. 

Fold and tuck the open pie dough over, folding in to form a rough circle.

Sprinkle the sugar all over the fruit.

Sprinkle the salt.

Put small pieces of the butter all over the peaches.

Brush the crust with an egg wash, then sprinkle more sugar on top.

Bake for about 30-40 min until crust is golden brown.

Server warm with ice cream.


You can make this with plums, apples, or any seasonal fruit.  I some times like to combine berries with stone fruits.  This particular recipe is great to add some blueberries or blackberries.  Use your favorite fruit combo.

Osteria La Spiga

A few weeks ago, the girls...Joan, Stephanie, Soung, and I went to Osteria La Spiga for a little dinner.  This place is in the new trendy part of Capitol Hill.  They make all their pastas by hand and the sauces are simple.  It was a simple dinner of wine and pastas.  


Joan had the classic Bolognese

Stephanie had green Lasagne

Soung had simple Tomato sauce

and I had Truffled butter...very simple dish but had robust flavor and smell of truffles.  One of the best ways to enjoy the truffles.

Tomato & Cheese Biscuits

This Sunday morning, I also made some savory Biscuits.  If I ever have a signature baked item, it will probably be various version of this. I love savory baked goods, especially in a biscuit.  It's a pastry you can eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Ingredients
Dry
3 cups of All Purpose Flour
1/4 cups of Sugar
1 tbs of Baking Powder
1 tsp of Salt
1/2 cup of 1 stick of "cold" Unsalted Butter (cut up in dice sizes)
Wet
1/2 cups of Buttermilk
1 Egg
Other
1/2 tsp of each of the following dried herbs:  Dill, Thyme, Basil, Oregano
1 tsp of black or white pepper
1/2 cup of Parmesan Cheese
1/4 cup of Sharp Cheddar Cheese
1 Tomato Chopped
1/2 cup of Onion ChoppedKosher Salt for sprinkling

-Preheat your oven to 365
-Mix all the dry ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl. Once combined, add the butter and use blend.  Blending can be done with a stand mixer or food processor or pastry cutter or just using your fingers by pinching the butter and flour between your fingers. The goal is to get a nice crumbly mixture where the dry ingredients Incorporated into the butter and you have a dusty, crushed graham cracker texture.
-Next, combine buttermilk and egg and put into a pourable cup or measuring cup.
-Add your flavor components now to the dry mixture. Start with the herbs and pepper into the dry mixture and toss well.  Add both of the cheese and again mix well.  Now add the final tomatoes and onions.  Now slowly add the milk/egg mixture into the dry mixture a little bit at a time, tossing thoroughly until all the wet mix is incorporated.  The goal is to get the dry mixture just enough of the wet for a moist combo evenly.  You might not need the full wet mixture.  If the tomatoes are really juicy, you might not need as much.  Get a good feel until you can form a nice, but not sticky dough.
-Dump the final mixture onto a floured hard surface and using a scraper just pull and press the mixture together to form nice mound.  Toss flour on top and roll out to about 2 inch thick.  Using a biscuit cutter, cut into the dough and place each biscuit onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put the sheet pan into the refrigerator for about 30 min until biscuits are cold.
-Take the biscuit out of the refrigerator and brush with any leftover wet mixture.  Sprinkle the top with some salt.
-Bake for 35-45 min until golden brown.  Eat right out of the oven or cool about 10 min.


Before the oven...

Hot out of the oven...serve with eggs and bacon for a complete breakfast, or salad or soup with lunch, and for dinner with your protein.

Blackberry Scones

Sunday mornings should be started off with freshly baked goods.  This morning I made Blackberry scones and some biscuits.  

I like my scones on the drier side with the crumbly tidbits at the edges of the scones.  Most scones I find are made too wet, either too much fat and/or buttermilk or cream.  Mine didn't turn out perfect today either.  Mine came out too wet.  It was still pretty darn good.


Scones and/or biscuits take a careful hand.  You don't want to handle too much or the pastry becomes too tough.  I've been able to develop my skills for this working at Bothways Cafe a few years back.  This is one pastry where you can have a great recipe but it's the technical skills and practice that enables great results.


I've been in search of a perfect combo for the dry ingredients but still need to work at it.  The one that comes closet to my ideal scone is from the Grand Central Bakery.  I tweak their dry ratios but used my own for the wet.  The ratio changes also with the "other" flavor components.  If you are using mainly dry fruit and nuts, then you need more of the wet component.  If you use fresh fruit or even frozen, then less.  For this reason, when you are combining the wet and dry, use your judgement and experiment with the ratios until you get the texture of the scones you like.  


Ingredients
Dry
3 cups of All Purpose Flour
1/4 cups of Sugar
1 Tbs of Baking Powder
1 tsp of Salt
1/2 cup of 1 stick of "cold" Unsalted Butter (cut up in dice sizes)
Wet
3/4 cups of Buttermilk
1 Egg
Other
3/4 cups of Blackberries (I like to use frozen berries because it's easier to work with.)
Turbinado Sugar for sprinkling
Kosher Salt for sprinkling


-Preheat your oven to 365
-Mix all the dry ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl. Once combined, add the butter and use blend.  Blending can be done with a stand mixer or food processor or pastry cutter or just using your fingers by pinching the butter and flour between your fingers. The goal is to get a nice crumbly mixture where the dry ingredients Incorporated into the butter and you have a dusty, crushed graham cracker texture.  
-Next, combine buttermilk and egg and put into a pourable cup or measuring cup.
-Add your flavor components now to the dry mixture.  In this case I put the frozen blackberries into the flour/butter mixture and tossed gently.  Now slowly add the milk/egg mixture into the dry mixture a little bit at a time, tossing thoroughly until all the wet mix is incorporated.  The goal is to get the dry mixture just enough of the wet for a moist combo evenly.  
-Dump the final mixture onto a floured hard surface and using a scraper just pull and press the mixture together to form nice round about 2 inch thick.  All you are doing is creating form and not mixing or smashing.  Cut the form into 6 pieces like you are cutting a pizza.  Place each scone onto a sheet pan lined with parchment paper.  Put the sheet pan into the refrigerator for about 30 min until scones are cold. I find you get flakier scones this way.
-Take the scones out of the refrigerator and brush with any leftover wet mixture.  Sprinkle with sugar and then salt.
-Bake for 35-45 min until golden brown.  Eat right out of the oven or cool about 10 min.


Before going into the oven...

Final product....

Bon Appetite!

Homemade Pizza

Today, I spent the day in Ballard watching world cup and shopping at the farmer's market.  It was seafood fest in Ballard.  Samad and I were going to try and watch it at the new Market Arms.  We got there an hour before and the lines around the block.  We tried to find a few other places that were showing the game with sound and ended up at the newly open place The Noble Fir.  


The Noble Fir is a drink place in Ballard.  They don't have much food, just cheese and appetizer plates.  Their dessert menu are 3 different Theo chocolate bars...enough said.  Their drinks are great though, they have a great selections of drafts and a few ciders. I ended up drinking 2 pts of cider.  


Anyways, this lead us to the farmer's market where I got inspired to make pizza for dinner.  


The Dough
I made the dough a day ago, eager to make the No Knead Bread again with the warm weather in the air.  My friend Anya told me to use this as pizza dough a while back and we did use the recipe for the Homeless cooking a few months back.  So, I decided to make pizza instead of bread. I do have to say, this dough makes great pizza.  It can be thin and crispy if you roll it out very thin, or chewy and crusty as a thicker roll out.


The Toppings
I picked up some great porcini mushrooms, truffle formage, and fresh basil at the market.  On our way back to my place, we saw some rosemary bush so broke off a twig and put in our bag.  


The Result
I made 3 different kinds....


Truffled Porcini
This had porcini mushroom, tuffled formage, truffle salt.

Rosemary Potato
This had thinly sliced organic potatoes, porcini mushrooms, white onions, chili flakes, freshly chopped rosemary, and parmesean reggiano cheese.

Margarita
This was your classic. Made with San Marzano tomatoes, fresh basil, but no mozzerella, thus used parmesean.  Soung was over so had to make some vegan too.

Berry Berry Jams

I love jams!  I love making jams!  I love picking fresh berries and making jams!

One of my favorite things to do at the start of summer is to pick berries and then make freezer jams.  I make enough jams to last me a whole year, and also give out to my dear friends.


This is what I did today with friends.  We went to the Remlinger Farms in Carnation, WA,  where they have organic strawberries which were already 2 weeks in season, and today was the start of raspberry season.  The fruits weren't as plentiful as in the years past because as you all know in Seattle, we've not had much of a summer.  Still yet, the fruits were good, much better than any you buy at the store.  You can tell by the sweet smell of the berries which are much sweeter than even the organic ones in the store...


Started at 9am in the morning with a trip to the farm....


Here is the gang, except Bia who joined us a little later.

The strawberries at these farms are always much smaller than what you see at the grocery stores.   This is what makes flavorful jams and these are really sweet!

It took a whiles but were able to fill our flat

After the strawberries, we went to pick the raspberries.  Now the strawberries are smaller than the ones you normally buy, but raspberries are much bigger than the raspberries you see in the store.   They are just as sweet and flavorful.

But, there were more green ones than the red ones.

We were able to find a good amount of it though.

At the end of day, were able able to go home with about 1 full flat of raspberries and 2 full flat of strawberries.  $1 per pound for strawberries and $2 per pound for the raspberries.  What a deal!

Now home to make the jam....


I like to make freezer jam because you don't have to cook the berries. Cooking berries kills the  enzymes, the freshness, and the vibrant summer flavors of the berries.   Freezer jams help retain the flavors because you store them in the freezer and they won't spoil. Amazingly they stay very fresh.  You can keep it in the freezer for up to 1 year, I think I've gone even 1 year and half.  Below is the recipe I use from the back of the pectin label.  Below are pictures of how we spent the day making it, and then enjoying with some bread.


8 cups of crushed berries
3 cups of Sugar
2 packages of instant pectin
-Stem and wash the berries well.  Drain all the water.
-Put the berries in a large bowl.  Crush the berries using your hands.  Wear plastic gloves because berries will stain the fingers.
-Mix the sugar and pectin and combine well using a wire wisk.
-Pour the sugar/pectin mixture into the berry mixture and stir well.
-Ladle or pour the berry mixture into the clean mason jars.  Let sit at least 30 minutes and cover with lids.
-Put the finished jams into freezer or refrigerate if you are going to eat right away. 
-When you want more jam, take out of freezer and let sit in refrigerator for a few hours until defrosted.
-Serve them with your favorite bread, ice cream, or any other times you need a sweetness of a fresh fruit jam.


Once we got home, we got started with removing the stems of the strawberries.

Then washed them with water then drained.

After that, it's time to smash the berries with hand. It's okay and good to have some good chunky pieces.

For the raspberries or anytime you make berries with lots of seeds, make sure to strain the berry juice.  Save 1/2 seeds and add them back to the juice mixture.  If you kept all the seeds then it's too much and too distracting, but you need the seeds to give characteristics of the berry, raspberry in this case.

Here is what your final mixture will look like.

Next you prepare your pectic and sugar mixture.  These are considered dry ingredients, so they need to be mixed evenly before adding to the berry mixture.

After the berry an sugar/pectin mixture is well combined, then you ladle them into your jars.

Or your can pour them via funnel.  Whatever is the easiest or the kind of jars you are using.

Here are our final jars...

We enjoyed them with fresh bread and croissants.

We ended up making 63 jars, sizes varied from 1 pint jars to 1/4 pint jars. Phew, another year good of berry jams.  I will try other fruits with the seasons....