Vegetable Crepes Say Oui

Last Sunday was a long day and a good one. I watched no football. I went to an audition. I worked on lines for another upcoming audition. I made it to the tail end of improv practice. Then we had a show. Then went out with the group afterwards for a drink. Then I came home and worked more.

Then I poured a glass of red, got on hulu and queued up The Mindy Project and Super Fun Night to keep the laughs coming and ward off the cold. It was LA cold by which I mean I needed a sweater and a scarf if outdoors. Then I got cookin’. If I was Anna Thomas I probably would have gotten stoned.

And I barely heard that the Seahawks won. But congrats to my Seattle chums and aunt and uncle.

I am honestly not sure where Anna Thomas gets off calling these crepes, as they are quite thick.Even after I adapted the recipe, pureeing a bit after stirring the veggies in, this batter was still unruly and hard to deal with. Maybe it was the pot she cites smoking convivially in The Vegetarian Epicure that impaired her judgement? I’m not against her enjoying a nice smoke, I’m just speculating. Or maybe her thinking they qualified as crepes was due to the era in which the book was written? I guess she didn’t have Siri around to quiz on what made a crepe different from a pancake from a griddle cake. Good thing she didn’t include Mexican and/or Tex-Mex fare in her book. The Chillaquiles/Migas debate could go on for days. Delicious days.

As I rewarded my day of hard work with these crepes, so will the hard work you put into these reward you, regardless of how much beer and football made your day easy. Kapeesh? Ok.

I’m hungry. Let’s eat.
Vegetable Crepes adapted from The Vegetarian Epicue by Anna Thomas
A glass of robust red wine to sip whilst cooking
a dark and gloomy cold night out
olive oil spray
6 Tbsp. chopped onion
6 Tbsp. chopped scallions
1/4 tsp. chopped garlic (I used jarred)
1 jarred roasted red pepper, chopped
1 cup diced tomato (I used from a can. Convenience night, baby.)
1 tsp. dried basil
1 heaping tsp. dried parsley
sea salt
freshly ground pepper
2 T. + 2 tsp. flour
2 T. + 2 tsp. almond milk
1 egg
2 tsp. applesauce
grated Swiss cheese.
Heat a pan with olive oil spray, add onions, scallions, garlic and pepper and sauté until onions are good and soft. Add tomatoes, basil, parsley, and salt and pepper to taste and sauté until excess of liquid is evaporated. Use a blender to combine the flour, milk, egg and applesauce. Allow to sit about an hour or more. Stir in veggies when they are cool. Blend roughly with an immersion blender, you do want some chunk. If you need to add a dash of water to thin out the batter.
Heat a nonstick skillet with a wee bit of butter. Cook crepes using 1/4 cup batter for each until done on each side. Heat oven until 350 degrees. Put the crepes on a baking pan and sprinkle with a heaped up Tbsp. of cheese. Bake until melty and good. Sip wine. Revel Etc.

And for your Madame?

Apparently women have eggs.
Yeah we do.
That’s what we are good for. That and housecleaning.

I don’t plan on using my womanly eggs, but I do like to have my way with those of the chicken variety(provided they are the cruelty-free type and yes I want picture-proof that those are happy chicks).

Madame Croque apparently felt similarly, for she took her hubby, Monsieur Croque’s favorite sandwich and doctored it up for herself with an egg.

Eggs make most things better, and the boring old’ Croque Monsieur was in desperate need of a tune-up.

Madame Croque knew what she was doing! Leave it to the woman to fix it.

Croque Madame(adapted ever so slightly from the Joy of Cooking)
2 pieces of whole wheat bread
Butter
Dijon mustard
Vegetarian “ham”
Swiss cheese
Egg
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Preheat your broiler. Spread one slice of bread with butter and Dijon, add veg ham, then second slice of bread. Put in broiler just a little, it will starting to get toasty fast so watch it. Top with cheese and broil a bit more. And a bit I mean don’t walk away from that oven. This is not the time to tweet what you are making. Cut a hole in top slice of bread, crack an egg into it and broil a minute or so longer.
If, like me, you see your bread browning at an alarming rate and the egg is nowhere near done, remove from oven and microwave until done. Who were we before Dr. Percy Spencer? A bunch of bungling fools with burned bread, that’s who.
Grind on the salt and pepper.
Nifty.
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