RECIPE | SIMPLE CREPES

One night, while Daniel was working late and after Jack was asleep, I got the crazy idea in my head to try to make crepes as a surprise for Daniel. I did a little internet research, watched a hilariously dry and awkward Martha Stewart video about her preferred crepe recipe (great tips though) and realized I needed to really scale back on the proportions she used (and I didn't have quite the caliber of ingredients she called for on hand) so I improvised and came up with this really simple and easy crepe recipe for three. 

You will need:

1 cup pastry flour (I used White Lily brand)

1 hearty dash of salt

1 1/2 cups cold whole milk (don't skimp on the fat!)

2 whole eggs and 1 additional egg yolk

2 teaspoons melted butter (unsalted)

Step 1) sift salt and flour through a large sifter into a medium sized-mixing bowl. 

Step 2) In a separate bowl whisk together the eggs and egg yolk. After the eggs are thoroughly beaten, whisk in the whole milk as well. 

Step 3) Make a little well in the flour (like a volcano), pour the liquid mixture into the middle of the well (aka volcano) and mix with whisk until the flour dissolves into the liquid. After that, mix in the butter and strain the entire liquid mixture into another bowl. It should have the consistency of a heavy cream and appear as below. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Step 4) Heat another two tablespoons or so of butter on medium heat in a smallish non-stick pan. You should choose your pan based on how big you want your crepes. Once the pan and butter are hot use a ladle to pour in 1-2 ounces of crepe batter. Pick the pan up off of the stove and rotate the pan until the crepe batter spreads around and covers the entire bottom. As the crepe is cooking, use a non-stick spatula to make sure the edges of the crepe do not get stuck to the pan. Once the crepe slides around the pan easily without sticking, it's ready to flip. I sprinkled a little brown sugar on each side of my crepes just to add a touch of sweetness and to help the crepes brown up a bit. I like my crepes a little more on the done side so that they appear like so:

Step 5) Choose your toppings! This is the really fun part. I grabbed all the condiments out of my fridge that could possibly be yummy on a crepe and let everyone in the family choose which one they wanted. This included: peanut butter, honey, chow-chow, goat cheese, bananas, pepper jelly, chocolate almond spread, applesauce and honeysuckle jelly. Pictured below are my two favorite combinations: chèvre goat cheese + honey and the Trader Joe's chocolate almond butter + bananas. 

This was an awesome family brunch recipe, especially for Jack who loved picking his own toppings and who persistently maintained that these were called pancakes. We will definitely be making these regularly from now on! 

Sarah 

RECIPE | CHALLAH BREAD FRENCH TOAST

This is a loaf of Challah bread from our favorite local bakery, Yellow Dog Bread Co. They bake this special bread every Friday and if you are smart you'll call in early a reserve a loaf. Many Fridays in our family have ended in bitterly wept tears over sold-out Challah bread. I'm being melodramatic, but we seriously dig this stuff. Jack has literally eaten almost an entire loaf by himself (and I'm not exaggerating on that one). Challah is very soft and moist with a hint of sweet that makes it easy to stuff into your face by the fistful. For about three weeks running, I've had an ambition to make Challah bread french toast, but we would either forget to buy it early, forget to call, or we'd get the bread home and end up eating the whole thing immediately. Finally the stars aligned and this week we managed to exercise some self control and saved some challah for Sunday breakfast. 

Daniel used this baked recipe, so he prepped this on Saturday night in hopes that my bleary-eyed, not-a-morning-person self could manage to turn on the oven and pop in the pyrex dish on Sunday morning. (Full disclosure...my only material assistance in the preparation of this meal consisted of turning on the oven and taking extremely necessary pictures). This was a perfect way to start a Sunday--tons of sugar and a low maintenance but filling breakfast. I think we'll definitely be repeating this meal over the Christmas holidays, too!

RECIPE | BACON, EGG, + TABASCO BISCUITS

    This week's brinner was an ingenious experiment that against all odds turned out to be incredible. Daniel started whipping up a batch of biscuits while I was still at work, but unbeknownst to him we had no milk or butter. Always the pragmatic one, he subbed in what fat we had on hand for butter (which was bacon grease) and used water for milk. Initially, I was highly skeptical, but when the fluffy golden brown beauties came out of the oven I ate my words (pun intended). Southern cooking at it's finest, y'all. We fried up some bacon & eggs, slapped some mayo and tabasco on our biscuits, and reveled in what was possibly the fattiest meal consumed this week. See below for the biscuit recipe!

Bacon Biscuits

2 cups flour

1/2 cup water

6 tbs pork fat

1 teaspoon salt

1 tbs baking powder

1teaspoon baking soda

1. Whisk all dry ingredients in a non-reactive bowl.

2. Add bacon grease & mix until texture resembles corn meal.

3. Make a well in the middle and add water.

4. Mix with whisk until dough is evenly moist (should still be lumpy).

5. Turn out dough onto floured surface.

6. Press dough flat with hands until 1/2 in thick.

7. Sprinkle flour across the top of the dough, then fold the dough over in thirds (like you would fold a letter) and flatten (repeat three times, sprinkling flour each time).

8. Spread dough into a rectangle 1/2 inch thick and cut out 2 1/2 inch circles.

9. Place circles on a greased pan and press the center of each biscuit with thumb. 

10. Bake at 450 degrees for 15 minutes (or until golden brown). 

**If you want to make real biscuits, simply sub in milk and butter for the water and bacon grease.