Plan A Little, Eat A Lot

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Spinach and Artichoke Galette

Things are about to get hectic and I'm going to start pulling food from the freezer more regularly, so I checked my list for slightly time-commit-y favorites and lingered long enough over "galette" to grow attached to the idea for this week.

I don't have any favorite galette recipes... I always just sort of wing it when the time comes.

The whole point is that it's free form and weird, right? So I asked myself what I was craving, and rolled with it!

Planning!

I can't remember what came first when I was putting together my grocery list, the artichokes or the spinach. But once I was on that path, it was a simple leap from the one to the other. Then, ricotta salata, because it holds up marvelously in a freeform mess like this, a little bit of egg to bind it all together, and some lemon zest for tasty goodness. I love it when a plan comes together!

Here's the nutritional breakdown from Fitbit...

 

Groceries I had on hand...

  • butter
  • flour
  • salt
  • black pepper
  • eggs
  • lemon

Groceries I had to buy...

  • spinach ($2.49)
  • artichoke hearts ($3.49)
  • ricotta salata (.54lb @ $10.59/lb = $5.72)

Total monies spent for the entire recipe: $11.70

Total monies spent for each of these 4 meals....

$2.93 per meal...

Cooking!

Another week, another butter crust. Two things about this one... I added fresh cracked pepper to the pastry, something I do pretty regularly when I'm making a savory pie. And also, maybe a tablespoon of butter slipped out of my hand and into the sink while I was chopping the butter, and maybe I decided not to cut another tablespoon of butter and just live with slightly less butter in the pastry. Onward, said I!

For the filling, I steamed the spinach for 5 minutes, then set the steamer basket over a large bowl and pressed the extra water out, and let the whole thing sit to continuing draining while the pastry was chilling. When the time came, I preheated the oven to 400F, rolled out the pastry into a weird shape, chopped the artichoke hearts and stirred them up with the spinach (yes, I tossed the spinach liquid), zest of half a lemon, the two eggs and the chopped up ricotta salata, as well as some salt and fresh cracked pepper. I piled it all onto the pastry, folded up the sides, and baked for 45 minutes.

I let it all cool in the pan for about 45 minutes before slicing and packing it all up for my lunches this week. The whole thing smells amazing and the pastry is SO flaky and light! Trusting my gut for the win!