Apple nut butter crêpes

Crêpes:
- 1 large tablespoon local raw honey
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons ground flax
- 1/4 cup sourgum flour
- 2 eggs

Cooked in a cast iron skillet in coconut oil.

Filling:
- chopped gala apples, skin still on
- tablespoon of quince jam
- teaspoon fresh ground cinnamon
- teaspoon local raw honey
- dollop coconut oil for the bottom of the saucepan

Cook until soft but still crisp.

Spread some nut butter on each crêpe before filling with apples.

My nut butter was homemade almond-cashew butter.

Crêpes with coconut flour

We invented these crêpes and served with berry filling:
- 1 cup vanilla almond milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 cup unbleached white flour
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 2 tablespoons ground flax
- 1 tablespoon local raw honey

These were delicious.

Crêpes de la Canicule (Heat Wave Crepes)

I have had a batch of crêpes in the freezer. I don't even remember when I made them. I got them out of the freezer thinking i'd make a nice fresh berry sauce for them as breakfast. But my mom showed up and stole my daughter before I had a chance to feed her. So I moved that plan to dinner.

Okay, but I worked today and by the time I got home it was hot and I was tired. Knowing eventually I had to eat this crêpes, I had my husband buy berries, bananas and Nutella at Target yesterday. The Nutella was $3.19, for a jar I saw on sale elsewhere for $3.99. (of course, this was a specialty retailer.)

Tonight's dinner became a crêpe with a nice layer of Nutella and topped with a slice of banana the length of the crêpe and rolled. Sides of watermelon and raspberries.

I had separated these crêpes before freezing by slipping wax paper between each one and placing the stack in a ziploc bag. They tasted fresh even though I froze them months ago. Yup, crêpes are gone...

Pumpkin Pecan Crêpes

I finally got a chance to revisit pumpkin crêpes.
I forgot the thing I always forget. When I make crêpes, they work best if I get the Le Creuset skillet and grease in lightly but completely with butter, get it good and hot- a hair over medium, and then do not add more fat as I could. Dry and hot seems to be the secret to keeping crêpes from sticking. At least for me.

Today, I made half the recommended sauce for these crêpes, and added about 1 or so cups of chopped pecans. I also reserved some extra pumpkin from the can to substitute for one of the eggs in the traditional crêpe recipe. So where my traditional crêpe recipe calls for two eggs, the pumpkin recipe only has one. More details in the second link below. 

The pumpkin filling and sauce:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/07/pumpkin-maple-crepes.html

The pumpkin crêpes:
http://angelfoodcooking.blogspot.com/2009/10/pumpkin-crepeslessons-learned-from-le.html

Crêpes sales (Dirty crêpes) reruns

Today for breakfast we had yesterday's blueberry muffins. I also had a banana.

My daughter had her banana with lunch, which complemented the "dirty" crêpe (chocolate) with peanut butter filling I gave her with chocolate soy milk.

Oh, my. Looks like we're overdosing on chocolate.

Crêpes sales (Dirty crêpes)

Last semester, the French club held a crêpe sale, which made our native French professor look twice at the sign. The phrase crêpe sale in French would mean 'dirty crêpe.' I have pondered for months what would make a dirty crêpe.

This morning I almost made pancakes, and realized I had no milk. I had no milk-like products except for some liquid non-dairy creamer and some chocolate milk. So I thought I'd embark on a dirty chocolate crêpe.

Whisk vigorously:

• 2 eggs
• 1 cup chocolate soy milk
• 1/4 cup coffee
• 1 tsp walnut oil
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1/2 cup liquid non dairy creamer
• 1/3 cup Hersheys cocoa

Pour about 1/3 cup of the batter into a large hot skillet (heat around medium if it's a good iron skillet). Swirl skillet so crêpe is as thin as possible. Cook about three minutes. Flipping may be required.

I served these with applesauce on the side and peanut butter on the actual crêpe.

I think a real dirty crêpe would be stuffed with nutella and crushed oreos with whipped cream and gummy frogs on top.

The best breakfast I've had in weeks

A big glass of water.
Fresh raspberries, sliced banana.
A leftover pumpkin crêpe with cashew butter.

Yum.

My husband had a similar breakfast. My daughter got a crêpe with cashew butter and Nutella. I served her raspberries, banana and some canned fruit salad on the side.

Pumpkin crêpes/Lessons learned from Le Creuset

A while ago I made regular crêpes with pumpkin-maple filling and pumpkin-butter sauce. Those were incredible, but very rich.

I had pumpkin in the fridge, that I hadn't done anything with... so I thought pumpkin crêpes.

I took my crêpe recipe and removed one egg and replaced it with about four heaping tablespoons of pumpkin. And this is what it looked like once modified:

Pumpkin crêpes:

• 1 cup unbleached white flour
• 1.5 cups soymilk
• 1 egg
• 4 heaping tablespoons pumpkin
• 1 tablespoon oil* (upon later reflection on my handwriting I am fairly certain this is supposed to be a teaspoon)
• pinch iodized sea salt

Whisk vigorously until no lumps exist.

Now, here is where the experimenting began. I opted to use my new Le Creuset skillet, and I knew it would cook faster than my cheap-o cookware. It also said in the manual to have some butter or oil in the skillet when preheating it. So, I added a little bit of butter. I was concerned it was too little, so I added a teaspoon of oil. The result ended up being WAY too much.

By the third crêpe, I had a sliver of butter in the pan for every two to three crêpes, and the heat reduced to almost medium, on the low side, and the crêpes were cooking just as fast as they did in my old frying pan if not faster.

For filling, I mixed some cloves, nutmeg, ginger and cinnamon (or did I forget the cinnamon?) in with the last cup of pumpkin. We're talking about a 1/4 to a 1/2 teaspoon of each depending how much you like that spice. I then added 1 tablespoon real maple syrup.

They turned out very fluffy. And tasty.

Lessons I've learned from my Le Creuset skillet:
1. A little 'fat' goes a long way.
2. The heat needed to cook food is significantly lower than with my no-stick pans.
3. The handles gradually get hot. The little one first, then the big one.
4. My pot holders and oven mitts are so old and worn they don't protect from heat.

Pumpkin Maple Crêpes

I'm finally feeling better. I open my cupboards and they are bare. I see a frozen pack of crêpes and decide to make chicken crêpes. I send the family out to my garden to pick fresh lemon thyme. I'll cook the chicken with fresh chives and lemongrass/corn soup and make... what's this? There's no chicken left? Where did it go?

Plan B: Pumpkin Maple Crêpes
from: http://coffeeworks.blogs.com/coffee_and_tea/2006/10/pumpkin_crepes.html
modified of course

This turned out to be fabulous for summer since everything is room temperature except for the pumpkin sauce that tops the crêpes.

Pumpkin Filling
1-15 oz can pumpkin puree (with about five tablespoons pumpkin in reserve for the sauce)
3 tablespoons maple syrup
1 heaping tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves (I added the cloves to make it taste more like pumpkin pie)

Mix thoroughly in a bowl.

Butter Sauce
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
about 1/2 cup water
5 tablespoons pumpkin puree
2 tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Melt butter in a skillet. Add remaining ingredients and whisk until smooth. Heat well.

Make your own crêpes (this blog has a recipe), purchase some, or use pancakes.
With the crêpe room temperature, spread a thin layer of filling across the crêpe and roll/fold in your preferred method. Coat with the syrup. That's it!

The original recipe yields about 15 crêpes and estimates two per person. We made more filling than that and still ran out after eight crêpes but we had a ton of syrup remaining.

Crêpes with strawberry-banana filling

I decided to make crêpes with strawberry filling.

That may sound unremarkable, but somewhere I stumbled off the tried and true path and started experimenting.

Ingredients for Strawberry-Banana Crêpes
Butter
Lots of fresh strawberries, sliced
2 to 3 bananas
powdered sugar (for dusting)
1/2 cup flour
canola oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons Chambord
4 teaspoons organic raspberry jam
4 teaspoons organic sugar
water
sea salt
3/4 cup milk (or in my case, soy milk)

I had my husband slice about a quart of fresh strawberries. While he did that, my daughter and I poured two tablespoons Chambord and the jam into the bottom of a one-cup pyrex measuring glass. We added water so it would hit the one cup mark. We put it in a small saucepan and boiled. Then we added the strawberries and the four teaspoons sugar. We ended up adding some corn starch later to thicken the mix, and we boiled it so long the strawberries were reduced to a lumpy syrup, but oh, well, lesson for next time.

For the crêpe batter, we put the flour and a pinch of salt in the bottom of a mixing bowl. We stirred in the milk and the egg. And then a drizzle of canola oil, about half a teaspoon. We stirred until smooth and then I whisked until my arm got sore. Crêpes cannot be lumpy. This batter ended up my smoothest yet.

I rinsed out the glass measuring cup and poured the batter inside, for two reasons: 1. to make sure there were no lumps and 2. for better control pouring the batter into the pan.

I took a sliver of real butter and heated it in the skillet over medium high. Once the pan was hot, I swirled the butter in the skillet and, preferably with the skillet not on the heat, poured about 1/8 of a cup batter. I eye-balled it, aiming for a pot about the size of my palm and thinner than a pancake. Then I swirl the pan so I can get it as thin as paper. I returned the pan to the heat. It only takes about 30 seconds for the crêpe to cook. It won't exactly bubble like a pancake, but it will solidfy. I have heard that a crêpe that is appropriately thin will not need to be flipped. But mine need to be flipped for about ten seconds.

Add new butter every third crêpe or so.

When all the crêpes are done, arranged those to serve on plates. Arrange sliced bananas in a line down the center. Add some syrup (because that's what the strawberries became). Roll. Add more syrup and sprinkled powdered sugar.