Galettes Completes paired with a Vigné-Lourac Les Perles and the Weekly Menu #FrenchWinophiles

Pour yourself a glass of this Vigné-Lourac Les Perles and imagine you are sitting at a French café, people watching, as you enjoy this classic French Brunch dish.

Chicken Crepes, A Book Review, and The Weekly Menu

Tender crepes filled with a silky, creamy velouté containing chicken, mushrooms, and spinach can be made ahead and refrigerated before baking, if desired.

Dark Chocolate Filled Crepes and a Book Review

Tender Crepes filled with store-bought hot fudge sauce, topped with ice cream and drizzled with additional hot fudge.  An easy and impressive dessert.

I was inspired to make these crepes after reading All The Devils Are Here......

Roasted Vegetable Crepes #SundayFunday

Tender Crepes enfold savory roasted vegetables and creamy cheese, topped with a Red Pepper Coulis.

The Sunday Funday Bloggers are celebrating Candlemas today......

The Long Way Home, Blueberry Ginger Crepes, and the Weekly Menu

 The Long Way Home is the 10th novel in the Three Pine Series to which I am, apparently, addicted.  I can't seem to take a break between these novels, anxious as I am to see what lies in store for Chief Inspector Gamache and the residents of Three Pines.

Crepes with Vanilla Creme and Blueberry Compote and a Book Review

Tender delicate Crepes stuffed with Vanilla Creme and topped with Homemade Blueberry Compote.  Perfect for Breakfast or Dessert.

July is National Blueberry Month.......

Lemon Cream and Candied Ginger Crepes Cake #SpringSweetsWeek

This post is sponsored in conjunction with #SpringSweetsWeek. I received product samples from sponsor companies to help in the creation of the weeks recipes. All opinions are mine alone. 

Tender crepes layered with homemade lemon curd cream and flavored with candied ginger pieces. This is a decadent, delicious spring dessert that would be perfect for Easter or Mother's Day gatherings.

Shrimp and Asparagus Crepes ~~Recipe Redo

These easy and delicious crepes filled with shrimp and asparagus in a creamy mushroom sauce are a wonderful first course or fish course for your Easter Dinner.  

We are sharing Fresh Spring Recipes today.....

Chocolate Crepes #BreadBakers

These delicious, tender chocolate crepes topped with Strawberry Cheesecake Whipped Cream and Raspberries are a wonderful choice to serve to your Valentine tomorrow morning for breakfast or tomorrow evening for dessert.

It's time for Bread Bakers......

Crespelle to Nourish the Body #Movies and Munchies

Crespelle are savory Italian Crepes.  They are the easiest of pastas and wrapped around filling make wonderful cannelloni.  I used them to make Cheese Cannelloni so I had a meatless option on my dinner party buffet.

I was inspired to make this pasta after watching our Movies and Munchie film this month.....

Sourdough Crepes #BreadBakers

These crepes made with sourdough discard do not need to rest overnight.  You mix the ingredients and cook them immediately for a wonderful, custardy crepe to which you can add your favorite fillings.

The Bread Bakers are sharing Breakfast Bread recipes today.......

Palacsinta and a Book Review #FoodiesRead

Tender pancakes made in the Hungarian fashion of adding carbonated water as the liquid, rolled and topped wtih fresh berries and powdered sugar.

These Hungarian Crepes called Palacsinta were inspired by the novel The Dutch House by Ann Patchett.

Taco Crepes #CincodeMayoRecipes

Looking for a different, unique dinner to celebrate Cinco de Mayo while we are sheltering at home?  These delicious cornmeal crepes stuffed with taco filling and cheese, sprinkled with even more cheese and baked are a delicious way to Celebrate Cinco de Mayo or any Mexican Monday or Taco Tuesday.

The Festive Foodies are sharing Cinco de Mayo recipes with you today.  Just in time to start planning your celebration.

Cake for Breakfast? Why yes, please. #CakeSliceBakers

The next time you are out to super impress somebody invite them over for brunch and serve up this amazingly awesome Strawberries and Cream Crepe Cake.  It's perfect for dessert as well but nobody is expecting something this fantastic on the brunch table!!

This is one of four selections chosen for this months Cake Slice Bakers.......

Lemongrass Crepes with Gingered Blueberries #ImprovCookingChallenge

Welcome to this month's edition of Improv Cooking Challenge.  Each month we are given the same two ingredients and are encouraged to make the best dish we can that contains said ingredients.  It is a lot of fun and it is interesting to see how different our minds and palates are when we all get together to share our creations.

Our ingredients this month were Lemongrass and Blueberries.  My first thought was to make a pie or tart.  Then I switched to pancakes.  I toyed with the idea of muffins.  Before I knew it, it was two days before posting day and I had done nothing more than think about the ingredients and change my mind about what to make.

So here I was, on an early Tuesday morning.  Frank had left to go get our Little Angel Face and I went into the kitchen to start breakfast.  I pulled the lemongrass paste and blueberries from the refrigerator.  I just knew that if I made pancakes our Little Miss would be disappointed that hers were not chocolate chip.  I pulled out the flour and eggs thinking that muffins it would be when suddenly inspiration hit.

That inspiration came from my sister, Dawn.  You see, Dawn also has her granddaughter, Aurora, on Tuesdays and we had arranged a play date with our Angels for later in the morning.  We would meet at Jungle Java and let the girls play while we caught up with each other's lives and then we would have lunch before taking them home for their naps.  Lunch made me think of a restaurant near Jungle Java that makes great crepes.  Dawn loves crepes...."Hey", I thought, "How about lemongrass crepes with a blueberry compote?"

And that, my friends, is how my brain works and how it came about that I am sharing this wonderful recipe with you today.  I added some ginger paste to the compote because I thought it would complement the lemongrass and I was right.

You will find links to more amazing Lemongrass and Blueberry recipes at the bottom of this post.

Lemongrass Crepes with Gingered Blueberries

Crepes:
1 1/2 c. milk
1 c. flour
2 T. sugar
1 T. lemongrass paste
4 eggs
pinch of salt

Compote:
1/2 pint blueberries
2 T. water
2 T.  sugar
1/2 t. ginger paste

Crepes:

Place the milk, flour, sugar, lemongrass, eggs and salt into a blender and pulse until smooth.  Place into the refrigerator for at least one hour or up to overnight.

Place a small (around 8 inch) skillet over med high heat. Melt a small pat of butter in the skillet and use a silicone brush to cover the bottom of the pan with butter. Add about 2 Tablespoons of batter to the skillet, lifting and tilting the pan so the batter covers the bottom completely. Cook for 15-20 seconds until the top is dry and the bottom is golden brown. Remove to a platter.

Continue in this manner until all batter is used, adding butter to the skillet as needed. This should make approx. 16 crepes. Fill as desired and serve or freeze for use at a later time.

Compote:

In a small sauce pan, combine the blueberries, sugar, ginger paste and water. Bring to a boil, cook and stir until sugar is dissolved, mixture thickens and blueberries start to pop. Fold crepes into quarters, plate and top with the blueberry compote and whipped cream, if desired.

The #ImprovCookingChallenge is a monthly blogging event where two ingredients are assigned to a month. Bloggers can make any recipe they like as long as it features the two ingredients. If you are a blogger and would like to join us, please visit our Facebook page.You can also read more about the event on our our home page
If you’d like to see previous creations, check out our Pinterest board.

An InLinkz Link-up

Countdown to 2018; Breakfasts

Welcome to Day 2 of our Countdown where we are sharing our favorite recipes from categories chosen by Sarah of Fantastical Sharing of Recipes.  

Sarah hosts this party each year and we all look forward to not only reviewing our own recipes but finding out whether our favorites that our friends posted make the list.

Today we are talking breakfast.........

Cherry Cheese Braid

Breakfast Burrito

Steak and Egg Skillet

Apfelpfannkuchen

Beet Shakshuka

Mixed Berry Crepes with Homemade Blueberry Syrup

These breakfasts were all amazing and well received.  My personal favorite was the Shakshuka.  I have made it twice more and can't get enough of it.

Here are the others favorite Breakfasts

An InLinkz Link-up

Dark Sweet Cherry Crepes #DarkRecipes #SolarEclipse

Are you in a prime location to view the Eclipse?  I'm not.  Here in Michigan we are going to have a partial solar eclipse but that is pretty exciting too.

To celebrate this rare event, our friend Sue of Palatable Pastime invited us to post some Dark Recipes.  She suggested perhaps using dark chocolate, black beans, dark rum...you get the idea.

One of my friends is making Moon Pies......I am so envious of that kind of creative thinking.  My mind just doesn't work that way.

I decided to share some sweet dark cherries to celebrate the Total Eclipse of the Sun and made up some lovely crepes to bring to the party.

I have been sharing a lot of tart cherry recipes in the past couple of months using cherries from our daughter's prolific tree.  But we like sweet cherries too, so off we went to the cherry orchard while the picking was good.

We ate most of them, hand to mouth and seeds being spit into napkins or at each other depending on who was around and what kind of mood we were in .  I did set some aside for this dish though....it wouldn't be cherry season without enjoying a leisurely brunch featuring Cherry Crepes.

Dark Sweet Cherry Crepes

1 1/2 lbs sweet cherries, pitted

1 (10 oz) bottle cranberry juice

2 T. sugar

2 T. cornstarch

1 T. almond extract

1 recipe basic crepes (my recipe is here)

Freshly whipped cream for topping, if desired

Brown sugar for sprinkling, if desired

 Place the cherries, cranberry juice, sugar, cornstarch and almond extract into a large sauce pan over med high heat.  Bring to a boil, cook and stir until sauce is thickened and glossy, about 5-6 minutes. Set aside to cool while making crepes.

Divide the filling among the crepes folding or rolling the crepes around the filling.  Place on a plate and top with a little more of the filling.  Garnish with whipped cream and sprinkle with brown sugar, if desired. Print Recipe

Dark Recipes for the Solar Eclipse

• Blackberry Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies by Sew You Think You Can Cook
• Chinese Mooncakes (Snow Skin Mooncakes) by Caroline's Cooking
• Deep Dark Chocolate Brownies by Palatable Pastime
• Eclipse Pizza by Amy's Cooking Adventures
• Homemade Moon Pies by Family Around the Table
• Ramen and a Martini from the Abyss by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Sweet Dark Cherry Crepes by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Triple Chocolate Cookies by The Freshman Cook

One final recipe for #NationalBlueberryMonth

Some of us got together yesterday to celebrate National Blueberry Month.  When shopping for the event, I was excited about finding some beautiful local berries and I went a little overboard.  Well, okay, I went a LOT overboard.

I used the cup I needed for my Sour Cream Blueberry Crumb Cake and that left me with about 9 cups remaining.  Frank made us blueberry pancakes twice in one week.  I put them out each morning to be added to our cold cereal and I have used them in a smoothie.  

I made a second cake that we enjoyed for dessert last night but I am not sharing that recipe with you until next Tuesday when I write a book review about the novel from which it was inspired.

This left me with about 3 cups of blueberries left and not a clue what to make with them.  I also had a quart of strawberries that need to be used soon. 

I decided to combine these berries and stuff them into light, feathery crepes.  Crepes are easy to make but a little time consuming so this is a great breakfast for those leisurely weekend mornings or any morning if, like us, you are retired.  Sorry, I can't help myself LOL.

These can make a very quick weekday breakfast as well.  When you have some extra time you can make up a double batch of crepes.  Place a piece of waxed paper between each, put them into a freezer bag and pop them in the freezer.  They freeze beautifully and can be removed from the freezer, placed on the counter and will be ready to be filled with your fresh fruit and served quickly and efficiently the next morning.

You can just sprinkle them with powdered sugar, top them with whipped cream or pour your favorite store bought syrup over them.  I still had blueberries to use so I made up some homemade blueberry syrup that was perfect for these crepes, wonderful on Frank's blueberry pancakes and excellent as an ice cream topping.

Be forewarned.  This syrup is so quick, easy and inexpensive to make that you may never be able to justify spending big dollars ever again purchasing premade blueberry syrup.  You simply combine your berries, sugar, water and a bit of cornstarch in a large pot.  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir until berries pop open and the liquid clears and thickens, becoming glossy and gorgeous.  Strain and press the liquids from the solids.  (My chickens were thrilled to get all those blueberry skins)  

This is a great way to preserve blueberries for use after the season. This syrup should last up to a month or longer in the refrigerator.  I think.....I have never had any last longer than two weeks in this household.  It can be made with the blueberries that you freeze during the season as well.

Basic Crepe Recipe

1 1/2 c. milk

1 c. flour

4 eggs

1-2 t. sugar

pinch of salt

butter for cooking

Place the milk, flour, eggs, sugar and salt in a blender and pulse until smooth.  Place in the refrigerator overnight or for at least an hour before cooking.

Place a small (around 8 inch) skillet over med high heat. Melt a small pat of butter in the skillet and use a silicone brush to cover the bottom of the pan with butter.  Add about 2 Tablespoons of batter to the skillet, lifting and tilting the pan so the batter covers the bottom completely.  Cook for 15-20 seconds until the top is dry and the bottom is golden brown.  Remove to a platter.

Continue in this manner until all batter is used, adding butter to the skillet as needed.  This should make approx. 16 crepes. Fill as desired and serve or freeze as instructed in the above post for use at a later time.  Print Recipe

***If you wish to make savory crepes omit the sugar in the above recipe.  

Homemade Blueberry Syrup

2 c. blueberries

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 1/4 c. water

1 T. cornstarch

Place all ingredients in a large pot or dutch oven.  Bring to a boil.  Cook and stir until blueberries pop open and liquid is clear, glossy and slightly thickened, about 8-10 minutes.  Strain into a 2 cup measuring cup, pressing on the solids to release any additional juices.  Discard the solids and serve syrup warm or let come to room temperature and refrigerate for later use, rewarming before serving. Print Recipe

Countdown to 2017: Readers Favorite Recipes of 2016

This is it!  Today is the day that I share what you, my readers, have chosen as your favorite recipes of the year, determined by the number of page views.

The number one most viewed recipe from last year is this Peaches and Cream Cake that I made for my very first Improv Cooking Challenge.

The next most popular recipe post was my MerlotMe post that featured three different recipes.

Busy Day Rump Roast, Deep Dish Italian Chicken Pizza and Pasta ala Norma.

Readers loved these Shrimp and Asparagus Crepes and so do I.

Now let's go see what you guys chose as your favorites of my blogging friends recipes.