Recipe: Fig Galette

Hello you all!  I know it's been awhile since I posted anything.  Truth be told, I really haven't been doing much of anything.

There's a gardener-extraordinaire in our work building, when she has an abundance of things from her garden, she'll bring some in so that her coworkers with purple thumbs can enjoy.  Last week, she brought in the biggest figs I'd ever seen in my life!  They were about as big as the palm of my hand.  And they were super juicy.  So, I decided to make a fig galette (because, let's face it people - I'm lazy and can't make a full freaking pie!)  It turned out wonderfully, and I wanted to share the recipe and my tweaks with you all.

So, without further ado:  Fig Galette  (Original Recipe here)

• 1 Pie Crust  (I used a pillsbury un-rollable kind)
• 4 - 6 excellent large sized figs
• about 1/4 cup of jam (I used red currant, because that's all I had, darn it!)
• 2 Tablespoons sugar



chop up your figs

• With extra juicy figs, add 2 Tablespoons of corn starch

Step 1: preheat your oven to 375 Farenheit.  Gather your ingredients, and cut your figs up into quarters and then eighths.  Add them to a bowl or ziploc bag for mixing the sugars and things together later.

oil your dish (this is the
mini-baker from Pampered
Chef.)

Step 2: Get yourself a dish with sides, because honestly, a galette is a pain in the arse.  They want you to use a cookie sheet and just gently fold the dough over.  Well, I'm going to tell you, that's really hard to keep all together.  So, just get a sided dish.  Add some butter (I used coconut oil) to the bottom of the dish so that your pie crust doesn't stick.  Make sure that you spread the oil all around the base of the dish.

Step 3: Roll out your dough into your dish.  luckily, since you have sides, it doesn't have to be perfect because the sides will catch the juice that overflows.

mix your stuff

Step 4: Spread some jelly on that base.  I just guessed, honestly.  It looked like about 3 -4 tablespoons that I used...so a quarter cup is probably accurate.

Step 5:  Mix the sugar and the cornstarch together with the figs.  I had a lid with this container, so I used it and shook the mix up.

Pleat your galette

Step 6:  Pour your stuff into the crust.  and then fold the crust over the sides.  You can attempt to make it all beautiful by artfully pleating the crust as was mentioned in step 3 of the original recipe.  But honestly, who has the time and patience for this?  Mine looked just fine, thankyouverrymuch.

The finished piece

Step 7: Bake for 40-50 minutes until your house smells ridiculously delicious and the crust is starting to get flaky and brown.  Then let it stand cooling for another 15, but preferably 30 - if you can stand it!

Note:  I originally used half of the sugar and added honey for the other tablespoon, but I think the honey overpowered it a bit.  So, I'd probably just use straight sugar next time.

White Castle Burgers

Growing up with a father from the mid-west, one of the highlights when we would roll into St. Louis would be heading to White Castle.  Now, I know you either love them or hate them, being exposed to them as a kid, I admit, I love them!  The whole experience of seeing them on the griddle and all those little tiny buns being toasted on them as well.  I think it's part adorableness-factor, and the other part deliciousness-factor, that makes me love the Castle.  (oh and anything associated with the word "Castle" is okay by Princess ME!)

So, it is shocking to me that when I googled for a recipe for traditional sliders, and I came across this recipe (which I admit I skimmed, but got the gist of) for sliders, and I took it home to create beautiful sliders NOT REALIZING that "traditional sliders" taste just like White Castle burgers.  Remember, I skimmed the article, so I didn't see the whole "White Castle" thing at the very beginning.  I'm just interested in the recipe, not the story behind it!  

So, without further ado - Princess ME bequeaths upon you:

yummy!!!

Off-White Castle Burgers

recipe makes 6 "dinner roll" sized burgers

• 1 package of dinner rolls from the bakery section
  (I used these whole-wheat ones from Whole Foods, cause they're my fave)
• 1 lb. ground beef/chuck/sirloin (whatever floats your boat)
• 1 onion
• olive oil
• salt

Put the buns in a lowly heated toaster oven (say about 150 or so) to warm them up (because I do NOT need to soak up extra grease, no matter if that is the way the castle does it! 

Slice the onion so that it fits in a food processor (I used my mini food processor, so I sliced mine in half, and then into smaller pieces.  Create a finely chopped onion with food processor (almost turns into a mince with lots of juice).  Salt the onions.

Add beef to a bowl and add the onion and about a tablespoon of olive oil.  Blend ingredients with your hands until the onion is well distributed through the meat.  The oil just holds it all together a bit.    Form this into 6 patties (I probably could have gotten it to go into 7 patties, but 6 was a better number for me.

Warm up a skillet over Medium heat and add a touch of olive oil to that.

When pan is ready insert the first 3 burgers (unless you have a large griddle and can cook all 6 at one time.  If so, I envy you).  Allow to brown about 3-5 minutes per side, depending on your slider's thickness.

Remove the rolls from the oven, and cut open and place patties onto them. Repeat with the last 3 sliders. 

If you would like to turn these into "Krystal" burgers add pickle and mustard.  If you're a castle lover, leave them or add the pickles if you must.

Enjoy!