Leftover Vegetable Galette

To help reduce climate change, I try to reduce food waste, both in my own household and in yours.  I have come up with a yummy recipe that takes items which are deteriorating in the fridge and transforms them into something easy and elegant. In hopes of helping you figure out what to do with those deteriorating items in your fridge, I will share the steps I took in developing this recipe. You can adapt it to the ingredients you have on hand and want to use.

Make this savory tart to contain a creamy, cheesy sauce of leftover vegetables within a golden, flaky crust.

This rustic savory tart, also known as a galette or crostata, encases leftover vegetables in a simple creamy, slightly cheesy sauce and a golden, flaky crust. You start with a dough that is simple and easy to make. Don’t be intimidated, as I once was, by the thought of making your own dough! It really isn’t difficult or time consuming, the way I do it! It just makes an elegant container for the filling you will whip up with all those ingredients that you will not have to throw away after combining them in a nice sauce!

The Dough

First, make the dough, wrap it up in beeswax wrap (better for the environment than plastic wrap!) and put it in the refrigerator while you proceed with the vegetable filling for this galette.

The Filling

Next step is to figure out what will go into the filling. To start with, I took out the bits of vegetables in my fridge which needed to get used.

See if you can find these items in the photo:

The only cooked vegetable I have here is roasted sweet potatoes, leftover from a few nights ago. But I have small amounts of several raw vegetables, amounts too small to create a stand-alone dish.

Prioritize vegetables that are most likely to get thrown away if you don’t use them today!

I made cauliflower the other night but did not use the whole head, and there were just a few florets leftover, which were getting soft in the fridge due to age. There was a small broccoli floret, too small an amount to roast as a side dish veggie, which is my most routine and favorite way of using broccoli. There were only four Brussel sprouts, again too few for a stand-alone vegetable side dish. A handful of green beans, too few to stand alone. Three mushrooms, two carrots and two parsnips—small quantities. Half a fennel bulb. I used the other half about a week ago and needed to cut off the browning cut edge in order to use the remaining half. Part of a red pepper—definitely need to use it up before it needs to get thrown away. The zucchini is enough to use by itself for a dish, but I included it in case I felt I needed to round off the textures and flavors. In the end, I did not use the zucchini, but I list it here so you can see the possibilities.

You will want to include an onion.

For the end result, you need something from the onion family—all or part of a leek, onion, or shallot. I suppose if you don’t have any of these things, you could proceed without them, though they add flavor in a very good way.

Use a variety of textures and colors.

Some cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, cauliflower and Brussel sprouts all qualify) are good, but you need to balance their strong flavors with sweeter vegetables, such as sweet peppers, carrots, parsnips, green beans, and/or sweet potatoes. Potatoes would also be good here. I think just about any other vegetables you might have on hand could be used in this recipe. I can’t think of anything that wouldn’t be good, except perhaps salad greens and radishes. (Though I haven’t tried them so who knows, maybe they would be tasty!)  The key is to mix and match! Include a variety of textures, flavor profiles and colors! If you have a shriveled tomato, you could throw that in, as well! 

Prep vegetables that are not already cooked.

The next thing I did was to start chopping, beginning with the items I most needed to use up before they spoiled and had to be thrown away. In my case, the most necessary items to use were the cauliflower, the red pepper, and the fennel bulb. These items had already begun to soften or change in color, or in the case of the red pepper, it had not yet changed but I knew it would change if I did not use it soon.

Next were the Brussel sprouts. I had purchased a bag of them and used all except the four shown in the picture. I wanted to use them up before they went bad, and four is too small a number of Brussel sprouts to serve as just Brussel sprouts. The leek was also a definite on my “must-use” list, but because I wanted the flavor rather than because I had to use it up. After that, I selected based on balancing the color, texture and flavor of the dish. I did not use everything, in the end.

Some of the vegetables I steamed in the microwave for a minute or two to start the cooking process. Do this for vegetables which will not taste as good if they are not cooked enough to soften them. I did this for the cauliflower, Brussel sprouts, green beans, and the one parsnip I ended up using. The sweet potatoes were already roasted, so I could use them “as is.” The other vegetables I used went into the sauce raw, and cooked enough in the galette as it was baking. Except for the leek, which I sautéed in the sauce.

Make the sauce

To make the sauce, I started by sautéing the leek in melted butter, adding 2 pressed garlic cloves, then some flour, stirring all the while. Then slowly add some white wine, followed by milk, stirring constantly as the sauce thickens. Once it is thick enough, add some grated cheese, salt, pepper, and herbs, then 4-5 cups of vegetables. Your sauce is now complete and you can then spoon it into the middle of your rolled out galette dough, fold up the edges, and bake to a golden brown!

Wasting food contributes to global climate change.