Len's Recipe of the Month - June 2020

I didn't know what a galette was.   It sounded French but, otherwise, I was in the dark.

But Valerie Bertinelli was making one on her show and that was good enough for me.  She was making one with peaches and cherries on TV, but a Google search revealed that she also had made one that cream cheese based.   This I had to try because...well...cream cheese.   It's super easy and winds up tasting like a pastry you would get in Paris.   Or so I am told.

Now you will need a single pie crust.   You could make one of those yourself with a rolling pin.   But I am lazy.   And Valerie said it is alright to be so.  She used a store bought pie dough shell for her peach and cherry concoction.   I could legally do the same for the cherry cream cheese edition.

On a baking tray, place a sheet of parchment paper.   Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

Take that store bought pie dough shell and roll it out on the parchment paper.

In a bowl, place four ounces of softened cream cheese.    To this, add two tablespoons of granulated sugar and a few drops of vanilla extract.   Separate one egg and add the yolk to this mixture.   Save the egg white because you will need that for something else in a few minutes.

With an electric mixer, blend all these ingredients together till it resembles a smooth consistency.   

For the next part, you could use fresh cherries, but Valerie recommended frozen so who am I to argue?   Take a bag of thawed out cherries.  Place in a bowl.  Mix in one tablespoon of corn starch and another tablespoon of granulated sugar.   Incorporate all that together.

Take the cream cheese filling and spoon it onto the pie shell.   Smooth it out to a circle but make sure you leave an inch to an inch and a half of space from the end of the dough.   Do the same with the cherry mixture on top of the cream cheese.

Start folding up the edges of the pie crust.   The pastry should look like a circle.  Mine looked more like the Pentagon.   So what?   Tighten the edges together.

Remember that egg white?   Brush it on top of the pastry so it will get golden brown.   Then I remembered a trick from America's Test Kitchen.   Sprinkle some more sugar on top of the pastry.   This will help with the crispness.

Bake for 30 to 35 minutes.   Remove and let cool for twenty minutes.

Then have a slice and look around.   You will swear you see the Eiffel Tower in the distance.

Dinner last night:  Grilled bratwurst.