Mini Tomato Galettes

 

After discovering Tiny Tomato Galettes (Epicurious), they seemed like the perfect addition to a late summer family brunch. Using this recipe as inspiration, I reached back to the Rustic Tomato-Basil Tart (Cooking Light via Recipes Wiki) we've enjoyed many times.

I made 6 small galettes from the recipe.

In the crust, I substituted Greek yogurt for the sour cream.

As I assembled the galettes, I made these changes, instead of preparing the cheese mixture

• sprinkled flour on the dough
• dropped about one generous tablespoon of cottage cheese onto the center of the dough
• sprinkled shredded Fontina and oregano on the cottage cheese
• sprinkled flour on the cheese, followed by salt

My fellow brunchers gave their galettes 5 stars.⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The gift of good food

I'm in the Green Phone Booth today, sharing the tasty delights we fed a sister before she deployed.  Bon appetit!

= = =

Because the Green Phone Booth is no longer available, here's the post:

In which Truffula gains renewed appreciation for the power of good things to eat...

As of yesterday, my sister's boots are on the ground.  She had the past weekend off, and was able to travel home.  Her one wish: "to have some 'real food'."

Our mother and I ratcheted our kitchens into gear.  Soup was cooked.  Beans were soaked.  New ferments were prepared, and finished ones were pulled from their special places in the refrigerator.  Fruit and eggs were procured.  The dehydrator was filled and fired up.

Cafeteria fare and MREs have their purposes, but all thoughts of those were cast aside for

• pureed vegetable soup
• pats of butter (shh... they might even have been enjoyed straight up)
• aged, raw milk cheese
• sunny, golden yellow breakfast eggs
• squash chips, dipped into navy bean hummus made with Italian extra-virgin olive oil
• water kefir, from grains she'd carefully dried and sent to get me started kefiring way back when
• creamy milk kefir from direct-from-the-farm milk
• hearty, dark, whole-grain sourdough bread
• Dad's special goulash recipe, featuring grass-fed beef
• beautiful smoothies, containing raspberries, cherries, peaches, and generous pours of coconut oil
• kimchi, savored like a vintage wine

What do two wacky enterprising sisters do when left to their own between divine meals and snacks?  They devise a fermented cod liver oil taste-off!  We gathered jars of Green Pasture's new emulsified flavors, got out a supply of forks (they're better than spoons for stirring, in this case), revved up our taste buds, and happily sampled away.  The results: she loved the peppermint, I favored the licorice, and we were in firm agreement that the ginger one didn't need to be purchased again.

As she left, space in her bag was at a premium, but Mom found a way to slip in some sandwiches and apples for the road.  In the emails and text updates which followed, we read how sparingly those sandwiches were rationed out, with each bite savored to the max.  The organic apples received highest praise in comparison with the standard-fare Red Delicious.

LCDR G., we'll keep those ferments going for you, and our kitchens stocked!  (In the interim, I'm taking suggestions from gentle readers for how to mail dehydrated veggies in something other than a glass canning jar, and still have them remain in good condition.)

Learning the alphabet... outside in the garden

Check out my post at the Green Phone Booth to learn more about how T is learning his letters in our Alphabet Garden.  What a fun wrap-up to Grade 1!

"F" is for Feverfew, in full bloom right now.

Lamb's Ear grows under the "L",
with its purple spikes about to burst into beauty.  

Lions! Löwen!

These are the books we used for learning about lions:

• Lions, by Ann O. Squire
• Lions, by Sandra Markle
• Face to Face with Lions, by Beverly and Dereck Joubert
• And for fun: Akimbo and the Lions, by Alexander McCall Smith

Soaring on eagles' spirals

With our next homeschool review coming up, I'm working on my documentation.  Here are a few notes about our second Man and Animal block before I return the books to the library...

• Eagles: Lions of the Sky, by Emery Bernhard
• Soaring with the Wind: The Bald Eagle, by Gail Gibbons
• Eagle & Birds of Prey, by Jemima Parry-Jones
• Keepers of the Animals, by Michael Caduto and Joseph Bruchac (Eagle Boy story)

Interesting, I thought S would love "Eagle & Birds of Prey".  It's a Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness Book, and has loads of photos in it.  I checked out "Eagles: Lions of the Sky" just for good measure: it has lovely but simple illustrations, and my guess was that S would find it too easy.  Surprise!  The latter was by far his favorite.  When I asked him why, he told me how much he liked the pictures, and the fact that it told a story about eagles.  Score another point for the power of stories!

How to evaluate main lesson books

My first "issue" of the Waldorf-Ideen-Pool e-newsletter arrived today. Among the contents was a link to an easy method for main lesson book evaluation, or Epochenheft-Beurteilungen.

The author uses smiley faces to rate students on these factors:

• How well the notebook was taken care of (Heftpflege)
• handwriting (Schrift)
• page borders (Ränder)
• illustrations (Bilder)
• completeness (Vollständigkeit)
• Descriptions (Beschreibungen)

So far, we haven't provided our children with any formal evaluations. Still, it's nice to know in which areas this classroom teacher evaluated her students' work.

To buy, or not to buy a Buch - maybe we can help you

We are fortunate to have a branch of our public library system nearby.  Between all of our family members, we go there several times each week.  Many, many titles have come in and out of our house.

There's just one thing... the books are all in English!  When I was a child, the library system included some German books, too, but that's no longer a language it supports.  That means our selection of German-language books is limited to those we have at home.  That's why I'm all the happier to know of Alphabet Garten, an online bookstore for German books, videos, and DVDs for kids... on this side of the Atlantic!  And, it's a mama-owned home-based business!

When the opportunity came to review books for Alphabet Garten, I submitted an application.  The result was that... a box of books arrived on the front porch for me!

Sarah, Alphabet Garten's owner, added some thoughtful touches, including this colorful Buchwurm bookmark.  The bookmark wishes Viel Spass beim Lesen!  Thanks, we did have a lot of Spass, so much so that T asked me to reread one of the books to him right away.

My first review has been posted, and there are a few others in the pipeline.  Viel Spass beim Lesen!