Crêpe-y weekend

Last week when I read Urban Vegan’s post about Sunday morning crêpes, I was reminded of a fabulous long weekend with my family in Montréal when I was in grade 5. We went to breakfast at this funny little café in the underground city (it was February or March, so being above ground was not much of an option). I got fresh squeezed orange juice and a big ol’ crêpe filled with sliced bananas and chocolate chips and topped with chocolate syrup and icing sugar. It was too big and too sweet for me, but as a 10 year old I didn’t care. It was a thing of beauty.

So, after that trip down memory lane, I decided I would try my hand at crêpes again (I’ve had a few failures in the past). Following UV’s recipe and helpful instructions, I made a few crêpes for breakfast. For variety, I folded them in every way I could think of—in half, in quarters, rolled like a burrito, and scrolled up.

Two were filled with mixed berry jam, and two had chocolate spread and sliced bananas.

The crêpes themselves were, well, crêpes. They weren’t tasty, but they worked. I think part of my success was that I made them small. Plus, that way I could eat four of them without being too hedonistic. But with the fillings, they transformed from boring sheets of pastry into a sophisticated and tasty brekky.

After breakfast I pedalled up to the post office to pick up a package. I was pretty certain that it was a few books I ordered, and I was right.

I’ve been wanting to read Making a Killing by Bob Torres since before it came out (I nearly got to proof read it, but deadlines got in the way of that). When I order books from the US, I justify the long shipping by ordering two things... so I got myself a copy of La Dolce Vegan as well. And because they’re cool, the AK Press folks added a free sticker and a cool looking postcard/new book advert.

The first thing I did when I opened up my parcel was to flip through the cookbook. This is my first Sarah Kramer book, and I look forward to making lots of things from this book! What are your favourite recipes?

After thumbing through the recipes, I poured myself a glass of wine and curled up on the couch with Making a Killing. I’ll write a proper review soon, since I’m only halfway through. But my preliminary impression is that everyone must read this book! So if you’re reading this and you don’t yet have a copy, get thee to AK Press and order one!

Since my household is just one for another week, I had crêpe batter leftover from breakfast. So for dinner, I had savoury crêpes. For the filling, I sautéed some broccoli stems, capsicum and frozen spinach and mixed in some leftover Punk Rock Chickpea Gravy from Vegan with a Vengeance. I’ve noticed a few veg bloggers have gotten this book recently, and I really can’t recommend this recipe highly enough. I could eat this gravy by the bowlful, it’s that good. Anyways. The crêpes were filled with that mix and then topped with a bit of tofu sour cream. Nothing spectacular, but a good way to use leftover batter. And I found that crêpes are easier to make if you pour the batter from a jug.

Sunday morning I poked around in the garden and did some laundry, and I got the first ripe grape tomato off of our pathetic tomato plant. So delicious!

And as I was hanging the clothes on the line, I accidentally knocked off a small leaf from our slowly-establishing rainbow chard plants.

I wanted to use it while it was fresh, and I’ve heard a lot of hype about greens in smoothies. I wanted something a bit more substantial, though, so I mixed a banana, the leaf, some oats and soy milk. Then I flavoured it with a bit of brown sugar and cinnamon. For something to chew on, I garnished with desiccated coconut and walnuts. I couldn’t taste the chard at all, and this was such a yummy breakfast!

A few hours at uni, then an afternoon of cleaning up and reading, and I had worked up an appetite for dinner.

Now, for La Dolce Vegan. I’ve been meaning to make cornbread while Andy’s gone, since he doesn’t like the texture. I noticed “Wolffie’s ‘Buttermilk’ Corn Bread” so quickly whipped that up and stuck it in the oven. It took a bit longer to cook through than the recipe indicated, but other than that, this corn bread was really great. It got a bit crunchy on the outside, and it was a nice mix of sweet and savoury. Really good with guacamole.

I also made the “Bountiful Beans & Brown Rice” with a few minor changes. Also really good, but a bit basic. This was something that I would have thrown together without a recipe. Nonetheless, it was quite tasty!

Ah, the weekend. Even the busiest weekend is still better than a Monday morning. Hope you all enjoyed yourselves!