Breakfast - Crepes

Crepes - savory or sweet, they are super versatile no matter the meal.

I'm back to trying to find "new" ideas for breakast.  My daughter isn't inclined to wake and bound to the table starving for her first bite of food.  Some days she can barely bring herself  to eat one bite.  Since her lunch time is some ridiculously early time like 10:30am, I don't get too worked up about it, usually.

The challenge is to find foods that are relatively high in protein, provide whole grain, taste great and aren't too heavy...crepes work well!

Crepes are French in origin, of course, so I pulled out my favorites to compare recipes: Julia Child, Dori Greenspan and Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Raumbauer.  All the recipes differ slightly but basically you use equal parts flour to liquid, add sugar for sweet crepes and salt for savory. Most recipes recommend blending the batter in a blender, but I find that a whisk does the job.

With inspiration from the current Eating Well magazine February 2012, page 80-81, Crepe-a-licious! I used the following recipe this morning.  My daughter asked for seconds...

Basic Crepes
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour +
1/2 cup unbleached white
(OR any combination of flours you prefer)
1-2 teaspoons sugar (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3-4 large eggs (can omit 1-2 yolks if cholesterol is a concern, replace each yolk with an egg white)
1/2 cup low-fat or skim milk
2 teaspoons canola oil or melted butter (currently I have no microwave, so I used canola oil.  Typically I would use butter for the flavor, but I used butter in the filling, which worked well to preserve the buttery flavor that I like)
1/2 cup liquid of choice (milk, water or club soda)

Whisk all dry ingredients in a large bowl.  Whisk all wet ingredients in another bowl.  Add wet to dry and whisk like all get-out until batter is smooth (or put it all in the blender at once, sorry JC, no time in the morning for your method).  This batter can be covered and placed in the fridge overnight, or let it rest for 20-30 minutes before preparing the crepes (I dried my hair and put makeup on, straight-ironed my daughter's hair, made coffee and a sandwich for lunch during the rest).

Heat a non-stick skillet on medium-high, pour scant 1/2 cup batter into pan and swirl pan around to get a uniform circle, lower heat to medium and cook for about 1 minute or until the crepe lifts easily from the pan.  Flip the crepe over and cook for about 30 seconds.  Repeat until all batter is gone.  We filled them and ate them as they came out of the pan, but you can overlap them on a plate until all are made, just be careful to overlap only part of crepes on one another to avoid them sticking together.

01/04/2012 Filling - Banana-Caramel Crepes adapted from Eating Well Magazine, February 2012

Over medium heat, melt 1 tablespoon butter in a non-stick skillet , add 1/4 cup or less brown sugar.  Stir until combined.  Slice 4 bananas into pan and stir to coat. Divide among crepes and serve immediately.

01/05/2012 Filling - Caramel Apple
Follow the banana-caramel filling instructions, replacing bananas with 2 Honey Crisp apples peeled and sliced thin.