Rosie Makes A Savory Galette.

Feast your eyes first. Then we'll talk.

This is a galette. A savory galette. Anyone want to guess as to the innards of this? A galette is a French term for a flat, round pastry with a thin crust that can be either sweet or savory. Think of it as a rustic, free-form pie dough. A few days ago, I made a sweet, fruit galette which Mr. Hawthorne and I polished off in a matter of minutes. The recipe for the galette dough in the link above makes two galettes. For lunch, I used the second dough to make a savory galette. I loved this. And the possibilities are endless. So many riffs. Use your imagination and put what you have on hand to work for you.

I went to my fridge and freezer and pantry and came back with this. My mise en place. Everything in place, ready to go. Starting at top left and going clockwise, we have: prosciutto galette dough ricotta red pepper mushrooms red onion frozen pesto cubes Swiss cheese Mozzarella cheese goat cheese Parmesan cheese (Il Villagio)

I placed my disk of galette dough on a lightly floured board and rolled the dough out to an 11-inch diameter, flipping and dusting with flour several times.

I plopped what ricotta I had for the base. This is maybe 1/4 cup.

Spread out evenly to within about 2 inches of the edge. If you don't have ricotta, here's a suggestion that tastes nothing like ricotta, but would work very well: Mix some softened cream cheese with, perhaps, some sour cream, or goat cheese, if you have it, and add in herbs - say fresh parsley, chives, basil, oregano ... and use that in place of the ricotta.

Next I placed some prosciutto slices on top of the ricotta. If you have no prosciutto, pepperoni would do nicely. Whenever using pepperoni on a pizza, slice it thinly, put the slices on a paper towel, and nuke for about 20 seconds. This gets rid of a lot of oil that otherwise would end up in your dough. No pepperoni? Use ham. No ham? Get outta the kitchen.

Sliced roma tomatoes.

I placed a little bit of my pesto on top of each tomato slice. The day before Hurricane Irene blew through, I went out and picked every leaf off my basil plants. I made about a gallon of pesto, poured it into ice cube trays, froze the pesto cubes, then popped them into freezer bags. I can have summer year round this way.

Wrap each tomato lovingly with a caress of red onion.

Red pepper star.

Mushrooms.

Goat cheese spots.

Grated Swiss on left. Mozzarella on right.

Sprinkle grated cheeses over top of filling.

Drape sides of galette up around the filling.

Brush pastry with water.

Sprinkle Parmesan cheese over top.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 30 - 35 minutes. Watch it at the end.

Oh goodness. This is even better than I expected.

Let's take a little peak inside.

Lately, I've been all over what I call "pockets of flavor." Pockets of flavor in my steel cut oats. Pockets of flavor in my cocktail sauce. Don't mix it all together homogeneously. Swirl the different components together. That way, you get pockets of flavor. I'll say it again. I need more pockets of flavor! I like to have different flavors and textures on my tongue with each bite. And this savory galette delivered.

Pockets of flavor. I was so happy with this.

I loved the flavors. I loved the pockets.

Please try making your own galettes. Whether sweet or savory, these are wonderful little packages of goodness.