On the Menu: Crepes - Sweet & Savoury

Tonight, we will be entertaining Nick and Hilary for dinner. Nick is a meat 'n' potatoes kind of guy - so I usually stick to fairly traditional supper menus when they come over. However, this time, I've decided to make crepes for dinner.

Brian doesn't understand why I think that crepes fall into the "dinner" category - for him, crepes are a breakfast meal - and a breakfast meal that he'd skip, too. When I was growing up, my mom made almost every meal that was put onto the table. The selection varied througout the week, but on Saturday evenings, after we were all bathed and had watched some good ol' StarTrek TNG, we'd sit down to freshly baked homemade pizza. Mmm. But that's a topic for another day.

Tonight, I'm making crepes. And every now and again when I was growing up, on a really excellent day, my dad would step into the kitchen and, instead of Saturday night pizza, we'd have Saturday night crepes, piled with homemade strawberry jam, or pseudo-Aunt Jemimah syrup, or brown sugar and butter. For some reason on crepe night, we would all drink out of the now-vintage Corelle pyrex mugs, while on every other night of the week we used our colourful Tupperware cups. My dad made the best crepes - since leaving home I have made them more times than I can count, but even when I use his recipe I can't duplicate his handiwork.

Until I met Brian, I had always thought of Crepes as a sweet food with sweet fillings. I learned shortly after our relationship started that my new man was of the opinion that suger had no business ever appearing on the dinner table. Thus my introduction to savoury crepes.

Tonight, I plan on serving 4 different crepe options:

1) Asparagus & ham with swiss cheese
2) Tomato & pesto with mozzerella
3) Banana & Nutella (a la Chez Cora)
4) Sugar & lemon juice (introduced to me by brother Steve)

Dessert will follow in the same theme: Apple Enchiladas.

I'll let you know how it went.

Basic Crepe Recipe:
Taken from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

2 eggs

1 cup milk

2/3 cup all-purpose flour

1 pinch salt

1 1/2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Directions:

1.	In a blender combine eggs, milk, flour, salt and oil. Process until smooth. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour.
2.	Heat a skillet over medium-high heat and brush with oil. Pour 1/4 cup of crepe batter into pan, tilting to completely coat the surface of the pan. Cook 2 to 5 minutes, turning once, until golden. Repeat with remaining batter.

Apple Enchiladas:
Taken from allrecipes.com

Ingredients:

1 (21 ounce) can apple pie filling

6 (8 inch) flour tortillas

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/3 cup margarine

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

1/2 cup water

Directions:

1.	Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2.	Spoon fruit evenly onto all tortillas, sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll up tortillas and place seam side down on lightly greased 8x8 baking pan.
3.	Bring margarine, sugars and water to a boil in a medium sauce pan. Reduce heat and simmer, stirring constantly for 3 minutes.
4.	Pour sauce evenly over tortillas; sprinkle with extra cinnamon on top if desired. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.
5.	Makes 6 large tortillas; may be cut in half to serve 12.

Of course, since this is a crepe theme, I've replaced the tortillas with crepes.