Cheddar, Mushroom and Caramelized Onion Galette

A few weeks ago, my mother in law had made a really tasty Galette. I think she used asparagus and Romano cheese in hers, I'm not totally sure that was the kind of cheese, but it was a tasty cheese none the less. I decided a few days after that, that I wanted to make a Galette. 
A few weeks went on after that and as of today, I decided to tackle the challenge of making one! 
With the help of numerous blogs, recipe sites and different things I had read about Galettes, I used a combination of all to make mine!

For the dough:

1 1/2 cup flour.
1/2 teaspoon salt.
1/2 teaspoon oregano. 
1 stick of butter (8 Tablespoons).
5-6 tablespoons cold water

For the tasty insides:

1 package of baby bella mushrooms-cleaned and kept whole.
1 large onion-sliced thin.
around 1/2 cup cheddar shredded. (Prep, and keep in the fridge until needed.) 
a few pads of butter to saute mushrooms in.
a few pads of butter to saute onions in. 
2 cloves fresh garlic-chopped small.

Tools:

Rolling pin.
pastry mixer or failing that, a large serving fork.
large saute pan.
large cookie sheet.
parchment paper (wax paper).
2 cutting boards.
spatchula.

Attitude going into this recipe:
Patience.



To begin,

Cold butter

Using a small cutting board, slice butter into 1-2 inch slices. Keep in the fridge for an hour before using. You don't want soft butter! 
(I made the mistake of keeping the butter at room temperature for about 10 minutes, while mixing my dry indigence, it got soft and cutting it was a bit difficult.) 





In a large bowl, mix together all of the flour, salt and oregano.

Flour mixture with serving fork

Wait an hour.             

Finished mushrooms with fresh garlic

While you are waiting for this hour to pass, saute your onions, cook them on low heat until they are sweet smelling and lightly browned. Set aside and allow them to cool. Once the onions are done, saute your mushrooms, allow them to cook until soft and until most of the water has evaporated, set them in with the onions and allow to cool. Also, add in your chopped garlic and mix everything together. 

Onions frying

Now the somewhat difficult part. At least it was a bit hard for me. 

Add cold butter cubes to the bowl, and with the help of a pastry cutter mix till the mixture appears crumbly ( Butter should be coarsely cut and some should be size of oats and some should be size of peas... If you don't have the pastry cutter, you can use your serving fork. Which does not work as well, you really have to work that butter piece, I used the edges of the fork to mash the butter cube as best I could into something smaller, while mixing a bit at the same time. 
(The butter pieces didn't come out quite pea size, almost sliced almond size or a bit smaller.)
Do not over mix and do not use your your hands to mix, because your warm hands will melt the butter and the crust won't come out quite right. 
Before you do the next step, make sure you have mashed those butter pieces well. You don't want chunky butter in your dough!

Add cold water to the bowl; one table spoon at a time. Mix until the flour just comes together. 
( I highly recommend it, the one butter at a time thing. A lot of times this is my down fall, I try to do too much of one ingredient at one time, and then it makes it harder to work)

Do not add more water and do not over mix. The flour should just come together. Don't worry if the dough isn't smooth. 
(Although, mine did come out kind of smooth for some reason.)

I only used my hands for this last part.

There will be small crumbly pieces at the bottom of the bowl.  At this point, I used my hands to create a ball. I worked it lightly and got those crumbly pieces off the bottom of the bowl, and into my dough ball! Put the ball down nicely. 

Dough rolled out on wax paper

Using parchment paper (wax paper), roll out the dough ball. Flour your rolling pin to ensure the dough ball doesn't stick. 

(My dough came out a bit thicker than it should be, and also a bit more buttery I think, but that is okay, I have confidence this Galette will come out nice and tasty, and cheesy too, can't forget the cheese. )

Dough rolled out on cookie sheet

Spray a little bit of non stick spray to the cookie tray before adding the rolled out dough. Using gravity, hold up the wax paper, vertically, and carefully place the dough side onto the cookie tray. Then, slowly peel away at the sides to allow the paper to come off completely. 

Heaping pile of goodies

Leaving at least 1-2 inches of space all around, spoon on the insides!  I have a large heaping pile of goodies in the middle, and then top with cheese. 

Just before going into the oven

BAKE!
@ 400 degrees for 30 mins.

For my oven, 400 degrees is a bit hot, 380 for 30 minutes for my oven.

The aroma coming from the kitchen is divine...must ...resist... opening the oven....


After the 30 minutes I removed the tray from the oven. The cheddar is a little bit crisp on top, and the outside crust seems to need a little bit more time before it is done. 

I used a long spatchula to look underneath, it is lightly browned. It feels like it weights 4 pounds...considering that there is a whole package of mushrooms and a large onion inside; I think it sounds about accurate. 

Finished product!

A few more minutes and it was good!

Venison Steak and Ground Beef Chili

I've had a few venison steaks sitting in the fridge defrosting for the last few days and today, since we don't have propane still or else those babies would have been chilling on the grill, I decided to make a leaner chili, by combining some ground beef and some venison steaks! I believe as of tomorrow we will be getting propane!! My husband is grilling/cooking tomorrow night, we'll see what treat he grills up!

Prep time for this meal is about 30-45 mins, which is pretty simple.
Cook time for the meal will be about 4-5 hours on HIGH setting. If you want the LOW setting I would give it 10 hours minimum.

What You Need:
Ground Beef- about 1/2 a pound.
Venison Steaks- I used 4  about 2-3 inches thick.
1 Onion.
1 Can - Sauce. (29 oz or 1 lb 13 oz)
1 Can - Whole Peeled Tomatoes. (14.5 oz or 411 g)
1 Can - Dark Red Kidney Beans. (15 oz or 425 g)
Chili Powder about 6 tablespoons.
Cumin about 4 tablespoons
Crushed Red Pepper about 2 tablespoons.
Cracked Salt and Pepper both about 2 tablespoons each.
Garlic and Onion Powder about 2 1/2 tablespoons each.
Paprika about 1 tablespoon. 


Open up your can of sauce and add to the slow cooker. Open beans and whole peeled tomatoes, drain and rinse the beans and the whole peeled tomatoes as they tend to add unwanted water into the slow cooker and makes the end result a bit on the watery side, then promptly add to the cooker.  About 4 minutes.
Keep the stove on a medium heat (about a 3 1/2-4). Start by browning your ground beef and once it is browned, drain some of the grease, but reserve enough to fry the venison, and then add to the slow cooker. About 10 minutes.
Turn the heat down to a medium low heat (3). Cut up your venison steaks into small bite sized pieces, and brown them in the ground beef grease. They do shrink up in size a bit. Once they are browned well, drain that grease, reserve a bit for the onions and add the venison steak pieces to the slow cooker. About 10 minutes.
Cut up the onion into small confetti pieces, and add to the same pan you cooked the venison and beef in. Add in a little bit of butter if there is not enough grease left.    Cook the onions until they are soft, and slightly a light yellow/tan color. It will only take about 10-15 minutes. You just want the onions to be soft here because they will cook the rest of the way in the slow cooker!
Now that everything is nice and tucked in the slow cooker, you may want to add some of your spices!! Yay!! Let's see...a lot of chili powder, I use about 6 tablespoons, cumin about 4 tablespoons, crushed red pepper about 2 tablespoons, salt and pepper both about 2 tablespoons each, garlic and onion powder about 2 1/2 tablespoons each, and lastly paprika about 1 tablespoon.  
Mix everything well and put the lid on!
I have the cooker on HIGH for at least 4 hours. At this rate, my food should be ready by about 2:30 am since I started prep at 8 or so..and then the slow cooker was filled and ready to go at about 9 20 pm.