Month: July 2007

This is from Frog Hollow Farms and costs $25.  It's good, but a little pricey.  I think you can get it from Dean and Deluca too but they won't tell you that it comes from Frog Hollow Farms.  They sell a small version too.

So I made this peach galette the other day and making it again soon.  I like making strawberry sorbet too in the Summer.  I don't know why, I just do so don't bother me.

Here's the recipe:

• 1 1/4 cup flour
• 3 tbs buttermilk
• 1/3 cup water
• 1 tsp of sugar
• 1/2 tsp of salt
• 7 tablespoons unsalted butter (get the Strauss European style kind)
• a bunch of huge yellow peaches like 10 – 12 more is ok
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup peach schnapps

Make the dough with the first 6 ingredients.  Put the dry ingredients together the sugar, salt, flour, and butter in a bowl.  Mash it up until the butter gets all incorporated.  Mix up the buttermilk and water and start putting the water into the dough little by little.  Incorporate it in until it starts to look like dough, shouldn't be too sticky.  Wrap it up or put in a bowl and put saran wrap over the bowl and refrigerate for a couple hours or overnight.  This should be enough for two galettes.

Make sure the peaches are ripe, put in a brown bag if not.  Peel and slice nicely.  Put in a bowl and put in some sugar unless peaches are really, really sweet.  Put in the peach schnapps, optional.  If you're a drunk like me, put in a couple more tablespoons of peach schnapps.

Roll out the dough about 12 inches around.  Put the peaches in the center, about 1 cup, and arrange kinda nicely.  Fold the dough over the mixture and know that the crust is what makes a galette.  Sprinkle some sugar on the crust, might need to wet it a little with a pastry brush.

Put in over for 35 minutes in 350 degree oven.  Done.  Serve with whip cream or vanilla ice cream or Ginger Peach tea.  I've seen people change it up by spicing it up with cinnamon or adding raspberries, plums, nectarines or whatever.

This is a quick, basic gravy recipe I picked up from the Somerset Club (this is their poor man's demi-glace).  Great for mashed potatoes, beef, chicken, turkey, etc.  If you keep the roux light, it's good for biscuits too.

• 2 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 1 cup of beef broth or consomme (Swansons low sodium)
• 1 cup of chicken broth (Swansons low sodium)
• 1 tsp of tomato paste
• salt and pepper to taste

Melt the butter.  Toss in the flour and stir until brown.  The darker the roux the darker the gravy.  Toss in everything else and stir.  Done.

*Long unncessary inside story, but I had Mang Tomas (a sauce for pork) as the "gravy" for a Thanksgiving dinner once and it messed me up badly.  It just didn't work.

Here's the recipe:

• some cloves of garlic
• a couple medium onions rough cut
• 3-4 zucchini squash rough cut
• 3-4 tomatoes rough cut
• 2 large eggplants rough dice
• salt/pepper to taste about 2 tsp each
• 1 tbsp of bacon fat

Cut up the eggplant and soak in water to let the sting out. Dry. Heat some olive oil in a dutch oven medium heat. Toss in the onions. Toss in the garlic. Cook for a bit. Toss in everything else. Reduce to low. Cover and cook for about 30 minutes.

It's a nice little summer dish.