Remember the Olympics? Those were a while ago, but here's some French food (and drink) anyways!

Thought I would reach way back this time for this one. Have to catch up! Will catch up!

So way back when... when Vancouver, BC was hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics my friend was hosting an opening ceremonies party. For food we all chose a different country to represent and made recipes traditional to that land. We also chose countries to bring representational drinks for too. Being 'Oui Oui Potporri' I couldn’t not choose France! For both my food and drink. While there are plenty of yummy and tempting French deserts (which I do still want to try to make one day, I’ll keep you posted) I chose to break free of the “Katrina always brings desert” mode and made something savory instead… but it still required baking, of course. And as a personal challenge I didn’t want to fall on the tried and true quiche, I wanted to try to make something I haven’t ever made before… or even heard of really… or if I am being 100% honest, am still not entirely sure how you pronounce it… ‘galette’…. Hmmm I am sure my Francophile Crepeist can help me with that one, Ellen?

Anyways here is what I made! Had to make two different ones so that maybe by some rare and unexpected occurrence my pickypants husband would at least try one of them!

First the crusts, the two recipies came with different crust recipes but I used the simpler of the two for both of them. If you’d like a little more flavor they had added dried sage leaves to the crust for the Butternut Squash version. By the way Epicurious is awesome! You can search recipes by country! 

Crust:

2 cups all purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

4 tablespoons (or more) ice water

The temp. of the butter and water is important here, it makes the crust flakier and just better in general.

Pulse flour, butter and salt in a food processor until mixture resembles coarse meal.

Drizzle ice water evenly over mixture and pulse until it just forms a ball. Do not overwork dough, or pastry will be tough.

Gently press dough into a 5-inch disk and chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 1 hour.

Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled. Let stand at room temperature 15 minutes before rolling out.

Butternut Squash Galette

For filling:

1 (2-pound) butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into 2- by 1/4-inch slices (4 cups)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

3 tablespoons olive oil, divided

2 leeks (white and pale green parts only), thinly sliced crosswise

6 ounces soft mild goat cheese, crumbled (I believe I used some other cheese in place here…feta maybe, cutting back on all other added salt, or maybe cream cheese and added a little more salt… too long ago now I can’t remember… but options for you!)

-Preheat oven to 500°F with rack in middle.

-Toss squash with sea salt and 1 Tbsp oil and arrange in 1 layer in a 17-by 12-inch shallow baking pan.

-Roast, stirring once halfway through roasting, until golden brown on edges and undersides. The recipe says this should take 20 to 25 minutes, my psycho oven did it in 15, and it is okay for the squash to be a little firm, it will bake further later.

-Remove squash from oven and reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Meanwhile, wash leeks, then cook in remaining 2 tablespoons oil with a pinch of sea salt in a 10-inch heavy skillet over medium heat, loosely covered, stirring occasionally, until tender, 10 to 15 minutes.

-Transfer to a large bowl to cool slightly.

-Add squash, cheese of choice, and 1/4 teaspoon pepper and toss gently.

-Roll out dough into a 13-inch round on a lightly floured surface with a lightly floured rolling pin.

-Transfer to a baking sheet.

-Arrange filling in an even layer in center of dough, leaving a 2- to 3-inch border.

-Fold dough in on itself to cover outer rim of filling, pleating dough as necessary.

-Brush pastry with beaten egg and bake galette until crust is cooked through and golden on edges, 35 to 45 minutes. Again, these are loose ‘in a perfect world’ recipe time estimations, so keep an eye on it.

-Cool on baking sheet on a rack 10 minutes before serving. **

Zucchini, Lemon and Ricotta Galette

Don’t let the name of this one throw you off too much. The lemon is there, but not as strongly as you would expect given that name… I would call it a Zucchini Onion Galette instead. Yummy whatever you call it.

Filling:

5 2/3 cups coarsely grated zucchini (about 1 1/3 pounds) Large hole cheese greater works great and leaving the peel on adds color and vitamins! + +

1 1/4 teaspoons salt, divided

4 tablespoons butter, divided

4 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil

1 cup finely chopped onion

1 small garlic clove, minced

2 teaspoons fresh lemon juice

1 1/4 cups ricotta cheese I actually think I really did use ricotta for this one

1/3 cup plus 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese Real, fresh parm here people that weird powdered kraft stuff does not cut it.

1 large egg

2 teaspoons finely grated lemon peel

1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper

Fleur de sel

For crust:

Same as above! Super simple and yumalicious!

For filling:

-Place zucchini in colander set over large bowl. Sprinkle with 3/4 teaspoon salt and toss to coat. Let drain 30 minutes.

-Working in batches, squeeze zucchini in kitchen towel to remove as much liquid as possible. Seriously squueezeeeeee it! I couldn’t believe how much water is in zucchinis, the more water you get out the less sloppy your finished product will be.

-Melt 2 tablespoons butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat.

-Add onion and sauté until soft and translucent.

-Add garlic and sauté until fragrant.

-Add zucchini and lemon juice; reduce heat to medium-low and cook until zucchini is tender, stirring occasionally. Depending on the grate size of your zucchini this could happen pretty quickly, keep an eye on it, you don’t want mush.

-Cool to room temperature.

-Whisk ricotta cheese, 1/3 cup Parmesan, egg, lemon peel, 1/2 teaspoon pepper, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in medium bowl.

-Stir in cooled zucchini mixture.

-Preheat oven to 425°F.

-Line large baking sheet with parchment paper or foil

-Roll out dough disk to 1/8-inch thickness.

-Melt remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

-Spoon filling into center of  dough round, leaving 1 1/4- to 1 1/2-inch border.

-Carefully fold up border, pleating dough edges to create round pastry with exposed filling in center.

-Brush crusts with melted butter. This is fine and dandy and tastes just as good, but the egg wash over the crust that was called for in the first recipe makes for a much prettier finished product. I will do that instead when I make these again.

-Drizzle any remaining melted butter over filling in center.

-Sprinkle galette with remaining 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese.

-Sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. I am pretty sure I used plain ol’ sea salt here for lack of fleur de sel.

-Bake galette for roughly 20 minutes.

-Reduce oven temperature to 375°F.

-Bake until crust is golden and filling is set and begins to brown, about 25 minutes longer.

-Run spatula under galette to loosen. These are large and difficult to move. Imagine a pie not in a pie pan… and trying to move it from a baking sheet to a pretty serving pate… my flat airbake cookie sheet was perfect because it doesn’t have edges to cause problems like I had with the first one…

-Let rest 5 minutes. Can be made 4 hours ahead.

-Let stand at room temperature.

-Serve galette hot or at room temperature.**

** I covered these with foil in a sad attempt to keep them warm. However as I am sure many of you know Olympic Opening Ceremonies are hours and hours long. No worries though, they were just as good at room temperature as they were reheated the next day! Awesome!

One last side note on the zucchini galette: if I make it again I think I will try larger chunks of zucchini rather than the fine grate. This preparation was originally intended for individual sized mini galettes and for that scale the grate would be good I am sure. But on this large scale it kind of left me wanting more of a variation in texture, something to mix it up. Larger chunks of zuch, or bigger onions pieces not cooked quite so thoroughly. Things to think about for next time…

And yes the picky pants did try both of them! He preferred the zucchini which surprised me due to the presence of onions. I however have a major weak spot for anything butternut, and have a new found LOVE for leeks (enough to inspire some experimental leek soup which I may include on here one of these day too) so that one was my fav. by far.

And now finally on to my libation contribution for the evening!

French Cosmos

I have a sneaking suspicion that they aren't really French at all… but it fit, and I am a girly girl when it comes to my drinks and I enjoy the cosmos!

Here we go:

1 oz Ciroc vodka
1/2 oz Grand Marnier® orange liqueur
1/2 oz sweet and sour mix
1/2 oz cranberry juice
1/4 oz lime juice
1 drop grenadine syrup

Mix all save the grenadine. Pour into your favorite girly martini glass (or mason jar as the case may be) and add the drop of grenadine last. It will settle to the bottom and make a pretty pink fade effect. Enjoy! And repeat!

OH! And by the way I was attempting to make this an authentic French drink when I was looking for recipes. Ciroc Vodka is apparently French vodka…. I didn’t know what I was getting into until I got to the liquor store and it was not only on the top shelf but also had no price tag… at all… scary! So I just grabbed the trusty standby (you know the one in the giant plastic jug with the handle… one on the bottom shelf). And it was lovely!

We were too busy cheering on our countries, critiquing the ridiculous outfits/costumes of each country and stuffing our faces with lovely food from all around the world to take pics of the drinks but they looked pretty much like this:

Oui Oui!!!