Flat Pie

I didn't have a chance to do anything with the peaches and nectarines I'd picked on Wednesday until Sunday, when the stone fruits I'd left to ripen on the counter were in danger of becoming mush (a couple had already disintegrated) and I had to use them all immediately. Which was fine, because I had two galette doughs in the fridge - the same crust recipe from Smitten Kitchen that I used for the zucchini galette - and a bunch of blackberries in the fridge from Wednesday that I hadn't finished off yet.

I peeled the fuzzy white peaches (dunking them in boiling water for 30 seconds or so) but left the peels on the nectarine slices, figuring that they'd maintain their shape anyway.

Each galette had five or six small stone fruits and about a cup of blackberries with just a little bit of corn starch thrown in. Rolling out the galette dough in 90+ degree heat was a little tragic - it got extremely sticky and tried to melt, which made for some fairly ugly galettes.

I think the heat also made the dough less flaky and crusty, having melted all the butter prior to its introduction to the oven, although some of the blame definitely goes to the blackberries, which don't really macerate very well, but do let out a huge amount of liquid during the baking process. So the fruit juices ran out all over the dough, and soaked the inside, and the sad, overheated dough wasn't really able to overcome the onslaught of summer. And the oven heated up the kitchen to an almost unbearable level. Lesson learned: don't bake on hot days. 

But with all that said, these were some pretty delicious galettes, particularly the peach-blackberry, which played off the sweetness of the almost overripe peaches with the remarkably flavorful blackberries. It's almost too bad that the rest of the peaches went into making this chilled peaches and white wine mixture, except that it was even more refreshing and delicious than the galettes, probably due to a surprisingly wonderful white wine donated to the cause by my peach-picking/baking/eating accomplice.

And apologies to the French, but apparently the term "flat pie" is infinitely more comprehensible and amusing than "galette."

Technically a "vegetable dish" despite the three different types of cheese.

I just want you to know that I'm extra glad you're coming on Saturday-- there is going to be so much food!

Yay! Speaking of which, what food should I bring?

Maybe something veggie-ish? We have a grill at our disposal.

Does this count as vegetable-ish, or is there too much cheese?

oh shit man! I wanted to make that recipe so bad- I would totally freak if you brought that! (read: a resounding :yes, please bring it"!!)

It's such a relief that all my closest friends love food (although probably not coincidental), and because we're all intelligent, well-read, twenty-something, lady foodies, we all read the same blogs. Or at least Smitten Kitchen. And so when there's a new blog post up, suddenly all conversations begin to revolve around the latest recipe and everyone gets a craving. Which is quite convenient; for instance, when you've been craving chocolate doughnuts all day because of SK's latest recipe, and you show up at your friend's apartment and discover that she's been spending the whole day making those very doughnuts, well, life is good. 

And when that same friend is hosting a birthday/house-warming/what-have-you and you want to bring a dish, well, then the conversation at the top of this post occurs. And suddenly cheese counts as a vegetable, at least at our tables. 

I followed SK's recipe for the zucchini and ricotta galette pretty closely, although I think mine had a bit more zucchini in it. The dough is a regular pie dough (butter!) with some sour cream and lemon added in to give it some richness. Very delicate, very delicious.

My favorite part was letting the zucchini sweat, which always looks sort of amazing. And yes, it's slightly embarrassing to admit that I spent several minutes watching water coming out of zucchini slices, but I'm still going to show you one of the dozens of photos I took.