Galette Success!

As mentioned in my last blog, I wanted try making some little blueberry free-form pastries called "galettes". I finally made some and they turned out great! I have a feeling that I'm going to be making these a lot before the blueberry season is over... but you know what's right around the corner in my parts? Blackberry season! Blackberry galettes sound like a fine idea as well, don't they?

I ended up using the crust recipe from Spoon Fork Bacon and it was awesome!

Ingredients:
1 cup all purpose flour, plus more for dusting
¼ teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes
4 ounces cold cream cheese, cut into small cubes
1 tablespoon cold water
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

Directions:
1. Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
2. Place butter and cream cheese into the bowl with the flour mixture and cut together until fully incorporated. The mixture should be evenly grainy.
3. Add water and vinegar and knead together until the mixture comes together and a smooth dough forms, about 2 minutes.
4. Pat the dough into a disc, cover with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

For the filling, I stayed really simple because I just wanted the natural flavor of the fresh blueberries to shine.

Ingredients:
8 oz fresh organic blueberries
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp organic cane sugar
2 tbsp raw honey
2 tsp corn starch

I rolled out the dough to about 1/4 inch thick and cut out circles with a cup. The diameter of the circles was probably about 3 inches. I put as much filling as made sense for the dough. I'm not exactly sure how much it was. A couple of spoonfuls maybe.

Then baked at 400 for about 10 minutes! YUM!  They turned out super delicious! I brought a few to work for people to try and the feedback was all very positive. 

These mini galettes are now available to order in my Etsy Shop. Enjoy!

Sweet Mini Galettes!

Lately I've been really ruminating on TARTLETS. That's the name, I should probably be making those, yeah? I've had lots of ideas for tartlets, but have been struggling with the fact that pie dough is scary to me, and also I'm not entirely sure how to ship the things... BUT I have been inspired by galettes. Sort of tarts, right? A version of a tart? They are basically freeform crusty treat dealios. And you can kind of put anything you want in them. They can be either sweet or savory, but sweet's my bag, yo.

I just bought a great bunch of blueberries that I'm really wanting to put into some kind of baked good. Blueberries are my favorite fruit ever (followed closely by pineapple) and I want to use them as much as I can while they're still in season (done around the end of June, sad face).

So Mini Blueberry Galettes it is! I'm going to modify this recipe from Buttered Up. 

Image from Spoon Fork Bacon

I'm going to make some tonight. Hopefully I remember to take process pictures this time. Eep!

Vegas Food. Wow.

I have returned! Back to life, back to reality. Vegas was fun and tiring! I wish I could say that I was there to party, but I was actually there for a class. I'm taking an exam to get my PHR certification next month and there's so much to cram in my head! I did have evenings free, though. And I spent that time stuffing my face with all things that are good. I pretty much indulged myself every night with fine dining. My mom went along with me and we got to splurge together.

The second night we were there, we went to one of Emeril Lagasse's restaurants, Delmonico Steakhouse. The service was a bit awkward, although I think the intent was to be good. I ordered the rib eye and oh my dear sweet baby Jesus, it was sooooo good. Cooked perfectly, extremely flavorful and brilliantly seasoned. I couldn't finish it and I'm still regretting it.

Not the best photo, but it makes me drool nonetheless.

On Thursday we fell asleep in the room and decided to just skip going to get dinner, but before we napped, we stopped at this cute bakery in the hotel and browsed their adorable pastries. So much inspiration! They also had a really cool chocolate fountain (not a disgusting one that people actually dipped things into, it was behind glass). I had some mint chip gelato and it was just dandy. 

On Friday night we went to a restaurant called Bartolotta. It's a really nice Italian seafood restaurant at the Wynn. This place was recommended to me by my boss and I'm glad it was because it was extremely delicious. We started out with a seared scallop appetizer. Probably the best scallop I've ever had in my life. I could have just eaten six of those and been happy. Then we had a seafood risotto with pieces of crab, lobster, scallop, clam and shrimp. Super flavorful and tasty, although a little more al dente than I prefer my risotto to be. We then shared a spiny lobster with this really awesome sauce made of garlic, pomini tomatoes, white wine, and peperoncino. I could have drank the sauce and skipped the lobster, it was that good.

Saturday night was our biggest night. We had dinner reservations at Prime Steakhouse and then tickets to see O by Cirque du Soleil.  This was probably the best restaurant experience that we had. The service was ridiculous and the food was unstoppable. We kind of went all out with this meal. We ordered an appetizer of bacon wrapped shrimp in this mustard, honey, cumin sauce. Holy mama, I want more of that. I didn't get a picture of that because we demolished the plate in about two minutes. Then I had a warm asparagus salad, yum! I pretty much love anything asparagus. After the salads, the serious food showed up. I had a duck breast l'orange AND a lobster tail. Eep! But it was so good!! The duck was amidst these little pillowy tufts of carrot and pear puree. I was able to keep from licking the plate, but just barely. My mom ordered the bone in filet (also with a lobster tail... hey it was go all out night) and she was also in pure heaven. We split sides of gratin potatoes, creamed spinach, and because our waiter convinced us, a second potato side called "crunchy potatoes". All yum yum yum. We skipped dessert because basically we didn't have anywhere in our bodies to fit it. And we had to get out of there to head to O. Which was mind-blowing, by the way.

On our last day, we figured we'd say goodbye in style, and we went to the number one rated brunch buffet in Vegas, the Sterling Brunch at Bally's. I've never seen anything like this buffet, and it was also the most expensive buffet I've ever seen. But it was probably worth it... it would have been more worth it if I had four stomachs and could have eaten more. This place had lobster tails, king crab legs, lamb chops, Chilean sea bass, filet in burgundy sauce, salmon wellington, oysters, shrimp, fresh made sushi, and plenty of other things that I can't remember, but were awesome I'm sure. I went for the lobster tail and lamb mostly. Because... lobster tail and lamb. I also had some baconey chivey mashed potatoes that were pretty bodacious. 

So those were our food adventures. My stomach is pretty much growling now, as I finish this blog post. I've basically been eating salads and vegetables since we got back from our rich foods and meat tour, but damn was it good :)