Last week I had the sudden urge to make a ton of homemade pie dough to have in my freezer for future baking endeavors. Yes, these are my Friday nights now. 

However, I have a mixed relationship with homemade dough. I once spent 3+ hours trying to perfect a pie crust that just would not roll out without falling apart. Good times. Since then, I've been on a mission to formulate the perfect, versatile, easy crust. After about 3 glasses of wine and a hefty amount of flour coating my clothes, success!

'Galette' is quite the buzz word in foodie culture these days, so with my new perfected crust recipe, I decided to join the galette cult. What is a galette? Galette is a term used in French cuisine to designate various types of flat, round or freeform crusty cakes. Basically, a less uptight pie. Right up my alley.

What I love about galettes is the ability to be creative. Oftentimes I struggle with baking because you have to be so exact and precise. In this recipe, I used kale and heirloom tomatoes as my base mix, and of course.. a bit of cheese. Some galette recipes call for dijon or a sauce at the bottom. I just did a little olive oil and garlic and it was...well you'll see. 

Bonus : If you want, you can make a few batches of the dough and freeze it for other homemade pie crust recipes. Simple thaw the dough when the time comes. Easy as pie!

{Heirloom Tomato and Kale Galette}

Serves 2-4

Ingredients: 

• 1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

• 1 stick unsalted butter

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 4 tbs ice cold water

• 1/2 bunch kale (about 1 cup)

• 1/2 sliced heirloom tomato

• 1 tsp garlic

• 2 tsp olive oil

• Handful of shredded gruyere cheese

• 1 egg + 3 tbs water

• Pinch of shredded parmesan

Directions:

1. Make the dough. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour and salt. Add the butter and mix well with a hand mixer until the butter is pearl sized. It will be clumpy.

2. Add the ice cold water, a few tablespoons at a time. Start with 2 tbs, and only add another if the dough won't hold and is too 'shaggy.'

3. Form the dough into a disc, and tightly wrap in saran wrap. Refrigerate for 30 minutes at least.

4. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

5. In a cast iron, add the kale and cook until the kale it wilted and the (3 minutes).

6. Remove the dough from the fridge, and roll out on a well floured surface. If the dough sticks, simply add more flour to your rolling pin or surface.

7. Transfer rolled out dough to parchment paper lined baking sheet.

8. Leaving about an inch border, spread garlic and olive oil on the base of the dough. Sprinkle with the gruyere cheese, and top with the kale. Layer the heirloom tomatoes on top.

9. Fold in the pie dough so that the edge is touching the filling.

10. With the egg and water, make an egg wash. Brush egg wash over crust, and sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

11. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until pie crust is browned.