June 28--Savory Crepes, Sweet Crepes

Dave: I love making crepes! I think crepes get the most mileage for the "you're a man who cooks!?" cool factor. I also love sea food...and white wine...and just about everything else in these recipes.

Lauren: One our first non-work roommate interactions was the day that Dave made Nutella and banana crepes for everybody. Until this point, he'd seemed pretty all-business, but what says "fun" more than crepes and Nutella? I think it's safe to say he won my friendship that day.

Dave: See what I mean? From stodgy "I read post-modern fiction Dave" to "fun loving crepe guy" in seconds. Here's a secret for all of those men out there who want to be able to say "Not only am I a man who cooks, I am a man who cooks....crepes," crepes are incredibly easy to make. Everything that is hard about pancakes is easy in crepe land, my man. Pancakes have a lot of ingredients; way more than seem necessary, right? You never know when to flip a pancake, unless you belong to the Lion's Club. You're constantly adding extra butter to your pan. The list goes on! In crepe land, you have four ingredients: flour, eggs, milk, butter. Crepes tell you exactly when they're done, and when they are done they prepare themselves for flipping by pulling away from the pan. Also, because of the butter in the batter, if you go "non-stick" you don't need to add any oil to your cooking apparatus.

Lauren: I think I can make a pretty good case for easy-peasy pancakes, but we'll save that for a future breakfast-for-dinner entry.

Dave: Be that as it may, crepes have gotten a bad rap as far as being high maintenance.

Tonight we decided to make a low-maintenance meal that feels high-maintenance. Two kinds of crepes with two kinds of very easy fillings that taste absolutely gourmet.

Lauren: For dinner, a seafood crepe in a white wine sauce; for dessert, strawberry crepes. Total time of prep + cooking? 90 minutes. And not just because we've made crepes before - you can do it, too!

Recipes:

Crepes

2 Cups All Purpose Flour

2 Cups Soy Milk (or cow's milk)

4 Eggs

4 Tablespoons Butter (Melted)

Mix flour, eggs and 8 Tablespoons of the milk in a bowl and mix well. Add the rest of the milk and the melted butter and whisk well. Put the batter in a spouted container (like a liquid measure.)

Preheat a nonstick skillet. Pour enough batter into the skillet to completely coat it. Wait until the edges of the crepe pull up and the crepe slides freely when the skillet is shaken. Flip the crepe and cook the other side until set (I guess you could use a spatula, but it is so much cooler when you flip it in the skillet.)

Seafood Filling:

1/2 pound of seafood (we just use the Trader Joe's seafood mix of scallops, shrimp and squid)

3 Tablespoons butter

3/4 cup Chardonnay (We used Winnefred California Chardonnay - $4.99 at Trader Joe's)

2 Tablespoons vital wheat gluten (you can use corn starch if you really want)

2 Scallions sliced to the middle of the dark green part

1 Tbsp minced Garlic

Melt the butter and add the scallions and garlic. Simmer very low for 3 minutes. Add the wine. Add the seafood mix and cook until seafood is just shy of cooked through. Take the filling off the range and mix the liquid with the vital wheat gluten and a few of the pieces of seafood in a food processor. Return the liquid to the seafood and continue cooking on low. When the sauce is sufficiently thick, spoon the sauce onto crepes and roll. Spoon a bit of sauce on top of each crepe and serve hot.

Strawberry Filling:

1 lb. strawberries, sliced (reserve 2 for garnish, if desired)

1/4 cup sugar

scant 1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons lemon juice

In a double-boiler or saucepan, bring water to a boil and add sugar. Reduce heat to medium; stir sugar for 8-10 minutes or until dissolved. Add strawberries to saucepan and stir at intervals until slightly mushy, then add lemon juice. Cook for additional 2 minutes, then remove from heat. Drain liquid, spoon onto crepes and roll. Serve with a spoonful of thick, plain yogurt with a drizzle of honey.

Optional strawberry garnish: Pull up greenery and cut into strawberry at 1/8-inch intervals, from where the strawberry lightens in color near greenery through towards point of strawberry (sort of as if you were cutting it into slices, but not going all the way through near the top). Holding top of strawberry, press out into a fan shape. (There are also lots of videos that demonstrate this, if these instructions are unclear.)