Greek Stewed Cauliflower

Greek flavors involve savory and more traditionally sweet cinnamon and orange zest.  And a dose of salty in the olives!

So I did almost no cooking this weekend-  yesterday I was busy doing a little 4 hour class at the tech school in Phillips and then I got outside and snowshoed twice.  This morning I went for a long walk, then hit the gym and then went snow shoeing.....  yikes.  So, I discovered a decided lack of food that I can use for lunch this week and had to rectify that.

I had seen a recipe on my Pinterest board, or rather I saw that someone had repinned this recipe and it gave me an aha moment.  And I had some quinoa left in the frig, so I had everything allllll ready for dinner.  Woo hoo!!

Oh yeah, I lied, btw.  I made blueberry muffins before lunch.   Sort of forgot about that.  That recipe is right here--  I made a slight adjustment, didn't have enough oatmeal, so I used oat bran to make up the rest of it.  AND for some insane reason there was no cinnamon in the recipe.  CRAZY TALK.  There was cinnamon in mine.  I had one today, and have another planned for tomorrow and have half in the freezer.   The MA on the other hand, has had more than one, which is why half of them are hidden in the freezer.  

Blueberry muffins!

Ok, so this went together super fast, just chop up what needs to be first then it is as simple as 1, 2, 3!

 Chop the cauliflower, onion, prepare the garlic for pressing and plan to slice the olives later.

Literally dump everything into a pan (after you quickly saute the onion and garlic)  except the olives and cook down for about 15 minutes.  Then simply add the olives, add salt and pepper to taste and serve over rice or quinoa or whatever you want!

Greek Stewed Cauliflower

1 tablespoon olive oil

3 cloves garlic, crushed

1 onion (chopped)

1 head cauliflower (chopped)

Zest ½ Orange

1 cinnamon stick

1  can crushed tomatoes or diced tomatoes

1 – 15 oz can tomato sauce

1 teaspoon oregano

½ teaspoon celery seed

⅛ teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

1 cup kalamata olives (chopped)

Salt and Pepper (to taste)

Heat oil in large pan and saute the onion until soft.  Add the garlic and saute for about 30 seconds.  Add  cauliflower, zest of orange, cinnamon stick, tomatoes and tomato sauce, oregano, celery seed and red pepper flakes.  Cook down until cauliflower is tender.  Remove cinnamon stick and add olives and salt/pepper.  Serve hot over rice or other grain.  YUMMY!! 

Now that was a great way to end a busy day!  And pretty joyful, too!

Peach blueberry galette and Sangria!

My dear friend Mark and I made plans waaaaay back in, say January, that on the first day it hits 80 degrees here, we were going to make and drink some Sangria!! There is some sort of story behind this that I don't really remember, but it seemed like a great excuse..... er, um, REASON at  the time.  So of course the first 80 degree day was at some inconvenient time when we were- God forbid- WORKING!!  And so it was the first 80 degree weekend, and then I was off on an adventure of my own..... so dog gone it, we made a date!

So good old Marksie had the wine, the fruit, the brandy, and the yummy homemade salsa and so I needed to provide something besides the glasses and the deck to sit on. Mark suggested/challenged me to dessert.  Maybe a Spanish dessert to go with the salsa and sangria. SPANISH???  Are you MAD????  Oh wait, that's me...  um, so we had a conversation of what that could possibly entail, and a fruit and cinnamon tart was decided upon, so the rest was up to me.

I consulted first of all my favorite cooking blog- The Smitten Kitchen- as Deb bakes some really wonderful things.  I have made a number of dishes/desserts from this website and I highly recommend checking it out.  She has many tarts, fruit desserts and the like on there, but none were exactly what I wanted.  I had blueberries in the refrigerator and I had made a scrumptious peach/blueberry cobbler last summer from Cooking Light Magazine.  I knew I wanted to use those flavors in a pie crusty sort of application.

So I made up my own!

I began by using this recipe for the tart crust- a very buttery, simple crust that would merely enhance the flavors of the fruit.  I used a combination of very ripe and slightly under-ripe peaches, some for flavor and some for texture, plus the blueberries.  I added a minimal amount of sugar and a nice healthy dose of cinnamon.  Wrapped it all up in the rolled dough and sprinkled it with Turbinado sugar. (You should hear how the MA mangles THAT word!)

After reading several of Deb's fruit tart recipes, I decided to use the technique of heating up my pizza stone in the oven for an hour to get it nice and hot.  That added a really great crispness to the crust that did not get soggy, even during yesterday's humidity.

It was REALLY a good recipe in the end, and can be used with any sort of fruit filling.  Actually, you could make something savory with it also, as there is very little sweetness in the crust....  hmmmmm....

Mix dry ingredients, cut up butter

Cut in butter until size of peas

Add ice water and stir until dough just holds together

Slip skins from peaches 

Roll out dough thinly

Peaches, all cut up

Blueberries with peaches 

Roll and pinch dough to make rustic bowl

YAY!

Peach Blueberry Galette

Tart crust:

This is the ingredient list for one galette- I doubled the recipe to make two.  Obviously.

1 cup of flour
1/2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
6 tablespoon cold butter
icewater

Combine flour, sugar, salt in a bowl.  Cut in butter with a pastry cutter, until butter is in pea sized pieces.  Add small amounts of ice water at a time into the flour mixture until it just rolls up into a ball.  Handle the dough as little as possible to keep it from getting tough.  Cover and place in the refrigerator at LEAST an hour before rolling.

Filling:

per galette-

3 - 4 peaches
1/2 pint blueberries
1/4 - 1/3 cup sugar
1/2 - 1 tsp cinnamon

Slip skins from peaches after plunging into boiling water.  Slice peaches into a bowl, and add blueberries.  Add sugar and cinnamon to taste.

Procedure:

About 1/2 hour to 45 minutes before rolling dough, put pizza stone in  425 oven, if you plan to use it.  Other wise heat oven to 425.  Roll out ball of dough very thinly. Spoon fruit into the center of the dough.  Pull and pinch the dough up and around the fruit-  Making a bowl from the dough to keep the juices from running out.  It will be very rustic and informal looking.  Moisten dough with a tiny bit of water and sprinkle with turbinado or white sugar if desired.  Work quickly so the dough can be transferred to the pizza stone without collapse. (yes, I had that problem!  with one of them)  I rolled my dough on the counter, assembled it on a cookie sheet and then slid it onto the pizza stone.  You can figure your own way, too!  Bake about 20 minutes, check for browning, and continue baking until the crust is light brown and the filling bubbling.  Transfer galette from the stone or pan to a cooling rack so the crust stays crisp and doesn't get soggy.

Now try NOT to eat it until your guest arrives with his Sangria!  THAT was hard!

In case you are interested.........

SANGRIA

Fill a beautiful glass pitcher with fresh, frozen fruit- orange and lemon slices, fresh pineapple, strawberries, nectarines.....

Add a yummy, fruity Cabernet Sauv, VERY COLD - we used Columbia-Crest Two Vines!  Add a 1/2 cup of brandy and a can of white soda......  It is infinitely more fun to do this in layers- fruit, wine, brandy, soda, repeat!  Then try to take pictures until you are silly with laughter and you haven't EVEN had more than a sip!!

Sangria pitcher and salsa

Did you know that pineapple soaked in wine is tingly??

There is NOTHING like a little Sangria joy! And it goes well with fruit tart!