I’m sitting outside watching a cardinal flit about the garden, perching on the top of wire trellis that supports the cherry tomato vines. It’s breezy and cool out today, but the sun is shining and I’m barefoot in a t-shirt. The morning is quiet—I can hear far-off voices now and again, and an insistent cheep of birdsong high above me. I left the heavy sliding glass door open to allow fresh air through the screen, and I can hear the gentle ping and clank of the washing machine and the quiet whooshing of the white noise machine coming through the baby monitor from the nursery upstairs.
It’s just the two of us at home and he’s sleeping soundly, curled up partly on his stomach with one chubby hand resting gently under his chin. In a few minutes, I’ll hear him stirring as he wakes up, babbling and blowing wet raspberries at the ceiling through his pursed lips.
We’ll make some crackers together (by together, I mean he will watch me while he gums on a ring of silicone beads, laughing and drooling and fixing his big blue eyes on me as I move about the kitchen). We’ll make dinner—tonight we’re having ground beef with ginger over garlicky rice noodles with a cabbage & apple slaw which is tossed in a dressing of almond butter and toasted sesame oil and apple cider vinegar.
(I’ll write about those noodles soon although the “recipe” is more of a template, because they are good. Spoiler alert: there is a lot of butter involved.)
There are still good berries at the farmers’ market—I reluctantly stop myself from making yet another loaf of banana bread (don’t worry, we’ll be back to more of that soon). Instead, I unearth a few graham crackers from the back of the cupboard—leftover from last week’s graham cracker praline and s’mores cake—and I put them to use in a blueberry thyme galette.
Why graham crackers, you ask? Good question. I find that sprinkling a layer of crushed graham cracker crumbs between the pie crust and the fruit helps to soak up some of the liquid from the berries, which makes the galette more sliceable and less messy. The flavor is also subtle but nice.
Thyme is a lovely herb to pair with blueberries, but you could skip it and use lemon zest instead, or just straight blueberries. Unadulterated!
Blueberry Thyme Graham Galette
For the crust
1 1/2 cups (180g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
9 tablespoons (127g) unsalted butter, cold, in chunks
4 to 5 tablespoons ice water
For the filling
1/4 cup finely crushed graham cracker crumbs
4 cups fresh blueberries
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
pinch of salt
1 teaspoon fresh thyme
1 egg white beaten with 1 tablespoon water
raw sugar, for sprinkling
To make the crust: Add the flour, sugar, and salt to a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until the butter is in small pea-sized pieces.
Add the ice water, one tablespoon at a time, and pulse just until the dough comes together in a ball.
Press the dough into a disk, wrap tightly in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Remove the dough from the refrigerator.
Roll the dough out into a large circle, about 14 inches in diameter.
Sprinkle the graham crackers crumbs evenly over the dough, leaving about 2 inches clear around the edge.
Toss the blueberries with the sugar, flour, salt, and thyme and pile the fruit onto the graham cracker crumbs, heaping the berries slightly more in the center.
Fold the edges of the dough up and over onto the edges of the fruit, pleating it slightly as you go.
Brush the edges of the dough with the egg white/water mixture and sprinkle generously with raw sugar.
Bake for about 45 to 55 minutes, or until the fruit is bubbling and the edges are golden.