recent photos butterflies

Taken at the butterfly house in the local Zoo. Unfortunately I'm not lucky enough to find these in real life.

a simple berry tart or galette

First, I am not a baking expert. Second, I don't generally pay attention to measurements for anything other than ingredients that effect chemistry in baking. I had a package of strawberries and blueberries left over from last week, got a small bag of cherries and black raspberries from family and a container of wild mulberries I picked.



Strawberries - aprox 1/2 pint
Black Raspberries - aprox 1 cup
Bluberries - aprox 1/2 pint
Mulberries - aprox 1 cup
Cherries - around 10

First, I chopped up the strawberries and add them to the bowl with the raspberries and blueberries. Then removed the stems from the mulberries (not really important since you can still eat them) and pitted the cherries.

1/4 cup white flour
1/2 cup sugar

In order from greatest to least amount:
cinnamon
nutmeg
ginger
allspice

Next I combined these ingredients, added them to the fruit mixture and mixed well. I didn't measure the spices. I just added what I liked. I put the berries in the fridge while I make a crust.



I decided to use this recipe (1 1/4 flour, 1 stick butter/margarine, 1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp sugar, 4 tsp ice water) for my crust, substituting margarine for butter and added about 1 tsp Chinese almond powder.

I don't have a food processor, so I cut the butter in the old fashioned way until crumbly. Then packed the dough together, split into two pieces, flattened, wrapped up and put in the fridge for 30 min.

Rolled out each ball of dough. It doesn't matter if it's round in this case.



I covered two pie pans in aluminum foil since there is a good chance of leaking filling. Lay the crust down and scoop half of the filling into the middle and fold up the sides. Then I folded the foil over the top.

Pre-heat oven to 400-450 (again I was guessing here and turned the temp up halfway through) and bake for 15-25 min. Fold back the aluminum foil halfway through so the top will get brown but not burnt.



Yum!