Attack of the Crepes!

Luscious Strawberries and Cashew Creme Crepes

Back when H came to visit, around the end of May, I started experimenting with crepes. It turns out that they are incredibly easy if you have the right tools! Luckily, in this case, "the right tools" all happen to be pretty inexpensive (excuse me while I momentarily geek out over gadgets, most of which have been in my kitchen for a while): a mesh sieve, colander, strainer or flour sifter; a well seasoned cast iron skillet, crepe pan, comal or flat griddle; a silicone brush; a crepe spreader (although an offset spatula may work, too); and a flexible stainless steel spatula.

The mesh sieve is for sifting your flour to make sure your crepes are light and lump-free. Mesh sieves are very useful in the kitchen as they can ensure your sauces, soups, sorbets, coulis, etc. are smooth and silky. You can also use it for rinsing dry grains or bean, or draining soaked nuts.

The skillet is where you'll cook the crepes, and cast iron is my favorite cooking medium: it conducts heat well so that food can cook evenly, it's durable as long as you treat it well, it takes on the best flavors and imparts them back into your food, it's naturally non-stick if it's well-seasoned, without being toxic (unlike Teflon....), and can be really inexpensive if it's a bare bones style. Of course, there are also the high-end enameled pieces of cast iron like Le Creuset which are pricey, but definitely worth it....they're just not for everything. While Le Creuset makes a crepe pan, I think it's unnecessary if you have a small kitchen or a tight budget.

The silicone brush enables you to keep your hot crepe pan well lubricated without having to worry about melting the bristles. I'll admit I was skeptical when I first saw the thick, rubbery bristles of a silicone brush. I though, "How in the world is that thing supposed to hold any oil, or agave nectar, or heaven forbid, a lighter liquid like soymilk?" And then I tried one. Immediately, I was hooked. Silicone pastry brushes are, in my opinion, the only way to go. Have you ever made baklava? If you use a plastic bristle pastry brush, the firm bristles catch and tear the delicate filo, and if you try using a soft natural bristle brush, you'll inevitably end up losing bristles in your baklava, which sure is appetizing! And the best reason to use silicone brushes is that they don't melt when you're working with heat, as silicone brushes have high melting point, usually around 500° F.

I'm sure the benefits of a crepe spreader are obvious, so there's really nothing for me to add.

Finally, there's the super thin and flexible stainless steel spatula. These are amazing tools. Perfect for flipping pancakes or crepes, moving hot cookies from cookie sheet to cooling rack, flipping burgers, tempeh or tofu in a cast iron skillet, or even for moving a cake from a square cake pan to a cooking rack. I certainly don't advise you to use any non-stick coated pans, but if you do, you'll want to avoid the stainless steel spatula, and instead opt for one of the nylon versions.

So, now that you know what the utensils do, I suppose you'll want a recipe and some pictures.

Simple Crepes
Christina Terriquez

1/2 cup organic whole wheat flour, or more if needed
1/8 teaspoon unrefined sea salt, SI brand recommended
organic safflower oil
3/4 cup organic unsweetened soy milk or rice milk

Directions
Sift flour and salt into a small bowl.

Mix 1 teaspoon of safflower oil and soy milk together, then whisk into dry ingredients. Batter should be about the consistency of melted ice cream, add more flour 1 tablespoon at a time if needed. Set batter aside.

Lightly brush safflower oil onto a griddle or cast iron skillet and heat to medium–high heat. Pour 2--4 tablespoons of batter onto hot skillet and quickly spread batter into thin round. Gently flip crepe in a quick, fluid motion and cook just until crepe is set. Crepes should be beige and flexible, not golden brown or crispy. Remove crepe from pan and repeat until all batter has been used. Brush more oil onto pan if needed.

Variations
-Fill crepes with fresh fruit and cashew créme for a simple but elegant brunch.

-Fill crepes with cooked tempeh, steamed asparagus or sautéed mushrooms for a savory meal.

The crepe recipe is pretty easy and straight forward, so I'm showing you some of my favorite ways to enjoy crepes. I think my favorite of all were the Crepes with Wild Asparagus and Shiitake Béchamel and the Luscious Strawberries and Cashew Créme Crepes: both of these dishes were gorgeous and delicious, but they also had very complex flavors and textures while being clean and simple. The Luscious Strawberries and Cashew Créme Crepes are something I would never order at a restaurant, but oh. my. god. were they amazing!

Quinoa, Teff and Corn Timbal with Appled Beets, Zucchini, Carrot, Candy Cap and Sugar Snap Pea Sauté, and Tempeh Crepes with Chives and Béchamel

For tempeh: simmer tempeh in water, shoyu and oil for 20 minutes, or alternately, steam tempeh for 20 minutes, then marinate in shoyu and pan fry until crispy.

For béchamel: heat olive oil in a skillet and mix in flour to make a white roux. When flour is well incorporated into oil, add unsweetened soy milk and whisk until sauce/gravy texture is achieved. Season with sea salt and/or shoyu and herbs or pepper if desired.

For Tempeh Crepes with Chives and Béchamel: wrap 2-4 pieces of tempeh up in each crepe. Covered with béchamel and garnish with chives.

Asparagus in Crepes with Wild Mushroom Béchamel

For Wild Mushroom Béchamel: reconstitute dried wild mushrooms and slice, or wash and slice a mix of fresh wild mushrooms. Sauté mushrooms in olive oil with a bit of shoyu or tamari. Remove cooked mushrooms from pan, add more olive oil and mix in flour to make a white roux. When flour is well incorporated into oil, add unsweetened soy milk and whisk until sauce/gravy texture is achieved. Add mushrooms back into sauce and season with sea salt and/or shoyu and herbs or pepper if desired.

For Asparagus in Crepes with Wild Mushroom Béchamel: blanch or lightly steam asparagus. Fill crepes with cooked asparagus and roll crepes. Pour hot béchamel over crepes.

Crepes with Wild Asparagus and Shiitake Béchamel

For Crepes with Wild Asparagus and Shiitake Béchamel: Blanch or lightly steam wild asparagus. Stuff asparagus into crepes, cover with shiitake béchamel and garnish with fresh, ripe tomatoes and scallions or chives.

Fresh Fruit and Cashew Créme in Crepes

Cashew Créme: soak approximately 1 cup of cashews in filtered water overnight. Drain water, purée with a pinch of sea salt, sweetener or your choice (I use agave nectar) and a small amount of water if needed. You can season with vanilla beans, vanilla extract, lemon juice, lemon zest, cinnamon or any combination thereof.

To prepare Fresh Fruit and Cashew Créme in Crepes: slice or dice fresh seasonal fruit or your choice you can use one variety or many (I used blackberries, pineapple, and mango). Fill crepes with about 1 tablespoon of cashew créme, 3 tablespoons fruit, and roll closed. Garnish with fresh mint, fresh fruit and/or cashew créme.

Luscious Strawberries and Cashew Créme Crepes

Luscious Strawberries: Slice berries and macerate in fresh squeezed orange juice, liquid sweetener of your choice (like agave or maple syrup), or for super luscious berries, a little maraska and/or amaretto liqueur and a bit of raspberry jam. In this case I opted for the super luscious variation, which was divine!

To prepare Luscious Strawberries and Cashew Créme Crepes, fill crepes with about 1 tablespoon cashew créme, add some berries, roll closed, top with more berries, a generous amount of berry liquid, and an extra dollop of cashew créme.

Blackberry Crepes

Blackberry Crepes: Fill the crepes with fresh blackberries and a touch of blackberry or raspberry jam (I was lucky enough to have some homemade blackberry jam from JD's mom), roll up crepe, top with a few more berries, and dust with powdered sugar, brown rice syrup powder, or drizzle with maple syrup or agave nectar.

May Updates

Platter of deliciousness.

I've been a bad, bad blogger. I'm sorry about the lack of posts. It's not from a lack of cooking. I've been taking tons of pictures, and creating many, many dishes. These pictures give you a glimpse of some of the dishes and recipes I'll be writing about in the coming weeks.

Strawberry Sorbet with Lime Zest

Raw TuNut Wrap
Quick Wonton Ravioli
Vegan Ceviche

During the winter and first half of spring, I was taking inspiration from Indian food, although lately Persian food has been my muse, so expect to see some recipes with Indian and Persian flavors.

I have also been very busy with our garden. In January, R and I moved into a lovely house. In March, JD joined us. JD and I have built three raised bed gardens, one full of vegetables including roots like carrots, onions, radishes and turnips, plus some tomatoes, fennel, broccoli, cabbage and jalapenos, one that has cucumbers and zucchini, and, once we make it a bit longer, will have cantaloupes, and my favorite bed, the herb garden, which features a bust that we've been calling The Lady.

The Lady watches over our herbs from her perch in the backyard.

The herb garden currently has dill, cilantro, thyme, lemon thyme, lemongrass (to go with our two kaffir lime trees), sage and basil. We have about 5 or 6 spots open for more herbs, in the herb bed, and a couple of container herbs, like chives and oregano. I recently bought some Asian seeds, including two amaranths (for the greens), Chinese cabbages, two daikons, shiso, Chinese leeks, bunching onions and burdock. I want to built three more raised beds; a tall bed for the burdock (you harvest it when it's 3 to 4 feet long, and it will grow through rock and around other roots, so with all the tree roots in our yard, planting it straight in the ground would make a harvesting nightmare), a large bed for all the other Asian vegetables, and a small bed like the herb garden for edible flowers.

Late Bloomers: I had all but given up on these pansy seedlings

We're also growing a few other things in the garden, outside of beds, like English peas, sweet potatoes, a fig tree, raspberries, blackberries, hibiscus, and of course the avocado trees and pineapples.

This is kind of a teaser, as I plan to write more on the topic later, but, at the school, it's home processing time, which means I get to teach some of my favorite classes. To view info about all the upcoming events, see more recipes and pictures, and see what else I'm up to, you can check out the blog I moderate for work here, I write the posts for NaturalEpicurean.

In more personal news, JD and I will be going to the ACL festival again this year. I'm especially excited to see DeVotchka, The Decemberists, Andrew Bird, Bjork, Regina Spektor, and Bob Dylan (Did you hear about this? The story made me giggle.) It will be great to see Wilco, Ben Kweller, The Del McCoury Band, Spoon, Kaiser Chiefs and Bloc Party again, although I'm not a huge fan of the latter four artists, I've seen them live, and they all put on great shows. I saw Jack White play with the Raconteurs last year, which made me wish I was watching The White Stripes, even though I stopped following them after Elephant, so this year I'll get my wish. I haven't decided if I'll check out Muse. I caught some of their show last year, but JD wasn't into them, so we left after two songs. I think their debut, Showbiz was my personal favorite, and honestly, I haven't kept up with them too much recently. Anyone on the lineup you consider to be must-see? I was disappointed that Interpol and Of Montreal weren't tapped since they (will) have both released albums (by the time of the festival).

Last, but certainly not least, my best friend, H will be visiting me this week! I have many potential ideas, including:
Zilker Botanical Gardens - the Oriental garden and koi ponds are gorgeous.
Happy Hour(or dinner) at the Clay Pit - appetizers are half price during happy hour, and although I always enjoy the food, it's the pashwari naan that I really want H to try.
Lunch at Aster's Ethiopian - plenty of injera, and many delicious vegetarian dishes.
Uchi - everyone in my social circle raves about Uchi, but I've never been since I can get decent vegan sushi anywhere, and I can make AWESOME vegan sushi at home, it always seemed as pointless for me to go to an expensive sushi place as it would be for me to go to an expensive steakhouse. H loves the sushi, though, so this is a good time to check it out.
AMoA
Cocktail party! - I think the South Austin Spec's just opened....
Threadgill's - I've never been, but one of my favorite locals band is having a show there.
The Draughthouse Pub and Brewery and/or The Gingerman - both have an vast & varied selection of exquisite beers, and the Draughthouse (obviously) brews their own. If we go to The Gingerman(which I've been known to drunkenly call "The GingerBREAD Man"), we'll probably check out Halcyon, because, though they are not vegan, H would love the idea of their indoor S'mores.
The Alamo Drafthouse - hopefully we can check out Terror Thursday at the original before they close.
The Whole Foods flagship location - it's kind of a huge yuppie amusement park, yes, but good Lord, do they have a lot of beautiful, tasty stuff, plus, they give out tons of samples.
Waterloo Records/Waterloo Video - 'nuff said.
Book People - Ditto.
Kerbey Lane - I'm sure we'll be out really, really late at least one night, in need of nourishment, and what's better for that than KL's Mushroom Artichoke Spinach Omelet, veganized? Nothing, that's what.
I'm also taking recommendations, so if you have suggestions for quintessentially Austin things, or know of any fun events occurring between May 31 and June 6, let me know.