Sunday, April 26, 2009

Arts & Crafts

So my new favorite spin on the classic "dinner party ala KT" is the Painting Party. Wine, good food, good conversation, and paints. Here are a few of the results from painting parties past and my own endeavors at home. It's been awhile since I've painted seriously, but I am steadily getting back into it and am enjoying the journey.

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Some photograph better than others...

Adventures in Baking: Apple and Berry Galette

2 posts in 1 day! That's what I call commitment! ;-)

So as I mentioned earlier today, my boss's birthday is tomorrow so I'm bringing in breakfast treats. I came upon this recipe on williams-sonoma.com (my go-to site for all things extravagant). It came up in my search for breakfast foods...but it looks (and smells) an awful lot like a fruit pie. Oh well, I'm just going to roll with it and claim it's a breakfast food and not a dessert. But really, who doesn't like pie for breakfast?

All in all, this is a pretty simple recipe. I think it looks a lot more intimidating/challenging than it is. I'll admit it was a bit time consuming, but not too tricky. I'd definitely recommend this recipe for anyone looking to bring something to a party that will be sure to majorly impress.

I'll let you read the recipe online for measurements and specific directions etc., however, I took some photos to illustrate the key steps. Oh yes, and as you'll see from the recipe this is supposed to be an Apple and CRANberry Galette, but seeing as it is not Thanksgiving I was unable to find cranberries ANYWHERE. I settled on a frozen berry medley of raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. I didn't want anything too sweet (such as strawberries) in an effort to keep the idea of apple cranberry.

The recipe says to use a food processor (thank goodness I just bought one!) to mix up all the dry ingredients and the butter. I think that this could also be done in a standing mixer if that's what you have around.

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dry ingredients/butter

next you have to mix the sour cream with the water and then sprinkle on top of the dry ingredients/butter and pulse until sticky.

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kind of looks/smells like sour milk. yum.

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once you get all the dough out of the food processor, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate. The recipe says to refrigerate for 20 mins, but I think you could even do this step a day or two before and the dough would still be ok.

While the dough is chilling, peel/slice/core the apples. Be sure you are using Granny Smith apples because they are tart. This is the most time consuming step of the whole recipe. As you'll see below, I use a handy dandy crank tool and it makes the slicing process go by in a snap. If you make apple pies or anything like this more than twice a year I would HIGHLY recommend buying one of these gadgets. It is worth every penny. I think Williams-Sonoma, Sur La Table and Pampered Chef all sell them. I've had mine for almost 10 years and it's still perfect. I think it's historically a Quaker design...

I digress.

Check out this baby in action:

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Next we disolve the sugar, honey, lemon juice and cinamon in a little water on the stove and then add the apples and simmer for awhile.

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looks and tastes like apple pie filling...

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use a slotted spoon to fish out the apples and set them aside

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I then added the frozen berry medley to the sugar/apple juice and cooked for a few minutes. After those are done, just add the berries to the apple mix and then simmer the juice until they thicken and become a nice syrupy red color. Add the juice to the fruit.

Time to roll the dough!

When baking I like to set up a little work area on the kitchen table as seen here.
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Flour your surface, then cut the big ball of dough in half. Use your hand to press the dough into a pancake shape then take the roller to it. (Repeat for both halves of the dough.)

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Spoon half the berry mixture in the center of each dough circle. Leave a couple inches empty around the edge.

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Fold over the egde as shown. The technique reminds me a lot of making a parchment paper pouch for cooking fish or something in the oven. Basically you just want to create a pretty pleated edge.

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Dot with butter...mmm...

Then BAKE! VoilĂ !

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My second one had a little hole in it and the juice spilled out...I love cleaning burned on sugar!
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:-(

In conclusion: I think this is a great recipe because of the impressive presentation. The crust is easy to make, though I think my standard "perfect piecrust" recipe is a bit more flakey. The crust recipe I usually use is shortening based and this one is butter based so it's just a little different.

And now to do the dishes....!

Let's give this another go

I just baked my first gluten-free baked good and I AM SO IMPRESSED with the recipe! So impressed I've decided to re-commit myself to this whole blog thing! I mean...don't these look GREAT!?!?!??!

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And yes, they actually taste really good! They are Blueberry Oat so they have a nice texture (I normally find rice-flour goods to be too fine grained) and a little crunch. I used rice flour (with some xanthum gum) and Bob's Red Mill rolled oats and frozen blueberries. I was afraid the muffins would be overly sweet (they have a LOT of sugar in them so definitely not low cal) but they are just right. I also really like this recipe because it's easy to make completely vegan since it actually calls for "egg replacer" (??) but I used regular eggs.

I got the recipe from Karina's Kitchen. I would definitely recommend this recipe and the website if you are ever in need of a gluten-free recipe.

As you know, I am not allergic to gluten, but a couple of my co-workers are and I'm bringing breakfast treats to work tomorrow for our Monday staff meeting to celebrate my boss's birthday. My boss is not gluten-intolerant so I'm going making something else for her...stay tuned.