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.)

June 15th--Red Wine Shrimp and Cointreau Cupcakes

Dave: Lauren thinks this post should be subtitled "Boozy Tuesday" and I can't say that I blame her. We have two dishes with boozy components. For our main course, we have red wine shrimp on polenta. This is a modification of the City Grocery Shrimp N' Grits recipe (not that the City Grocery recipe needed to be modified as it is quite tasty.)

Right now I have the shrimp marinating in the fridge, and I'm enjoying a glass of the wine we're using for the recipe. We're using Chariot '08 which is bottled by Jim Neal Wines ($4.99, Trader Joe's). It's a California table wine with a nice fruity body with back notes of pepper.



Lauren: I'm always good with a wine that lives at the corner of Tasty and Inexpensive, and Chariot more than fits the bill. It also imparts its friendly flavor to food nicely.

Since desserts are kind of a culinary blind spot for us (or at least, something for which we lack a stockpile of tried-and-true recipes), I decided to try my hand at dark chocolate cupcakes with Cointreau frosting. Originally, I was going to try to make fondant from scratch, but it seemed a little labor-intensive to simply jump into tonight.

Dave: Plus, we were having trouble finding a fondant recipe that didn't call for gelatin, which is kind of a "won't" for both of us (horse bone slime, anyone?). Anyway, it seems like Cointreau Buttercream Frosting is in the cards tonight...very exciting.

Lauren: Finally, I get to use that frosting set I picked up at Ikea! Also, things I learned today: buttercream frosting? Outside of a few additions, the name is also pretty much the recipe.

Dave: I'm really excited with how the shrimp came out. I increased the amount of citrus I usually put in the marinade to 1/2 part and used a little salt to help it find its way into the shrimp... all I can say is YUM! Also, I made a little lightly processed tomato chutney, and it is complementing the shrimp like it is its job (which it is).

On a whim, we bought some bell peppers at the Garden Fresh because they were an unprecedented 99 cents a pound. I decided to make a tri-color pepper salad to go with the the shrimp. I decided to go with chili powder instead of the traditional black pepper, and frankly, I don't think I'll ever go back. The chili powder made the bell peppers sweat perfectly, so I didn't need to add any extra liquid except for some white wine vinegar for taste.

Tomato Chutney Recipe:
Three Roma tomatoes
1 Tsp Hungarian hot paprika
1 Tsp balsamic vinaigrette
1/2 Tsp Himalayan pink salt, finely ground

Dice the tomatoes. I like to cut a "grid" into the tomatoes and then slice off the diced bits like so:




Put the tomato into a small saucepan and add all other ingredients.
Cook on low heat until the tomatoes have absorbed the vinegar.

Shrimp Recipe:
Polenta:
1 Tube polenta

Marinade:
1 Cup wine
1/2 Cup lemon juice
1 Tsp olive oil
1 Tsp kosher salt

Shrimp:
3/4 LB veined and peeled shrimp
1/2 Cup red wine

Procedure:
Marinate the shrimp one hour in the wine and lemon juice mixture.

Drain the shrimp. Put the shrimp in a high-walled frying pan and add 1/2 cup wine to cover the base of the pan. Sautee uncovered until the shrimp begin to curl and shrink. Cut the polenta into 1/2 inch sections and fry on a well-seasoned cast iron griddle.

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil. Place to polenta circles evenly over the surface of the baking sheet. Place a dollop of chutney on each ring and top it with a shrimp. Put the baking sheet under a broiler for 7 minutes.




Pepper Salad Recipe:
3 Bell Peppers (Green, Red, Yellow) Finely Diced
2 Tsps White Wine Vinegar
1 Tsp Chili Powder

Put the diced peppers in a bowl with a tight lid (in the absence of a lidded bowl, saran wrap can cover the bowl.) Add the vinegar and the chili powder to the peppers and shake well.

Cupcake Recipe:

(Modified from http://qafma.org/2009/08/23/chef-demo-recipe-lorna-yee/)

3 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate (at least 70% cacao), finely chopped or grated

1 cup strong, hot brewed coffee

2 large eggs

2/3 cup vegetable oil (I used safflower oil)

1 cup buttermilk (Don't feel like buying a whole thing of buttermilk just for cupcakes? Keep reading!)

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups sugar

2 cups all-purpose flour (No whole-wheat pastry flour this time - my baked goods always end up with a "healthy" taste when I try to substitute it)

1 cup good-quality unsweetened cocoa powder

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp kosher salt

DIY Buttermilk

With cow's milk or soy milk:

Add 1 tbsp lemon juice to 1 cup milk . Mix completely.

With rice milk:

A few more steps are involved in this method, but still doable. In a covered container, mix one cup rice milk, 1 tbsp lemon juice, and 1 1/2 tbsp corn starch. Shake vigorously until corn starch is incorporated into the rice milk. Coat the base of a sauteeing pan with margarine (Earth Balance works best) and heat on medium until margarine bubbles. Add milk mixture and stir constantly with a deglazing whisk until mixture bubbles. Reduce heat immediately and move mixture to another container; place in refrigerator until cool.

Preheat oven to 350F. In a small bowl, mix together the chocolate and hot coffee until the chocolate dissolves. Set aside until the coffee mixture cools.

In a separate large bowl, with an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat the eggs for 4 to 5 minutes, until pale in color and almost doubled in volume. It should look something like this:

Turn the mixer speed down to medium and add the vegetable oil, buttermilk, and vanilla, and beat until combined. Add the coffee and chocolate mixture, and again beat until combined.

Add the sugar, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt, and mix just until the batter comes together and no white streaks of flour are visible. As with many baked goods, overmixing toughens the finished product.

Divide the batter into lined cupcake tins, filling them three-quarters full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops of the cupcakes spring back when lightly pressed, or if they pass the toothpick test. (Note: mini-cupcakes take half the baking time.)

The frosting I would do differently in the future; I was a little lazy and used the recipe on the back of the powdered milk bag:

1 cup powdered milk

1 stick (1/4 lb.) unsalted butter

1/4 cup honey

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp water

1 tbsp Cointreau

Mix all ingredients except Cointreau together in a bowl with an electric mixer. Add Cointreau; mix until smooth. Optional: To give frosting more of an orange color to match the orange flavor, add one drop red and one drop yellow food coloring.

Finished Products: