Peach Crepes with Vanilla Custard Sauce

 I've been watching the crepe guy at our farmer's market and, in my hopeful naivete, building up images of whipping off flawless crepes that would look just like his. He always makes the process look easy so why would I not be able to duplicate his results at home with my own handy-dandy electric crepe maker?

The crepe recipe I used was definitely uncomplicated but it seemed kind of thinner than what I usually mix up. The new one came from a real live french mom, so how could it not be right? That's what I told myself as I poured out a runny sauce onto the crepe griddle.

I've noticed that my crepe maker seems to always be on too high a setting, based on how Crepe Guy can keep his batter on the griddle for a longer period, without it scorching too brown. So, I adjusted the heat all the way down to what seemed like a very low setting.

When my Saturday morning crepes are made by CG they come out in perfect circles with just the right thickness of batter. He uses his handy tool to swirl perfect creations every time, deftly turning them at just the right time and taking his time to lovingly place all the ingredient guts into the crepe. Sheer poetry in motion as he quickly goes from one crepe to the next.

Then there's me. The first attempt tears when I try to lift it. Perhaps because of the thinner batter, the crepes that do turn out have swiss dot holes on the edges, as if someone took a tiny hole punch and uniformly cut circle dots. Not pretty. When I try to turn some of the crepes, they fold in on themselves and, with the griddle so hot, I can't get them adjusted back to flat circle quickly enough. Oh, and that uniform shape Crepe Guy achieves? Forgettaboutit! Mine come out every which way. One looks downright post-modern Picassoish as it oozes over the side of the griddle and down to the counter below.

Now it's time to assemble the inside ingredients. I'd prepared the custard sauce earlier, also attempting to emulate what they put on the Saturday morning crepes I so love. That recipe goes together easily and it does taste gloriously sweet and creamy. CG uses a dispenser to squirt lines of his custard, but I slather mine on liberally with a knife; and in this case I don't even care that I'm not replicating his picture worthy preciseness.

And the peaches. Once again, I've got juicy delicious bounty from the farmer's market itself and, in my still deluded fog, I imagine that I'll slice mine up just as expertly as my crepe mentor. I'd watched as he took out a tiny handheld mandolin type instrument and figured that had to be the secret to those uniform slices that laid themselves so nicely on the bed of crepe and custard. Perhaps his peaches were a bit harder than mine? Whatever the reason, as I ran my fruit through the mandolin it kind of dissolved into a thin sliced pile of juicy peach guts. Yea, it was rather unsightly but, by now, I was committed to the project so I blotted some of the excess juice with a paper towel and then put my pathetic peaches on the crepe. Last touch was a sprinkling of brown sugar before folding up the way less than perfect crepe, now ready for a taste test.

Which is how we get from all the negatives of crepe components not looking like they should to that first divine bite of what seemed to be the best tasting crepe ever. The batter may have been thin and the crepe not so pretty, but it had the perfect texture of light but faintly spongy (?) that I don't always achieve in the heavier batters. I'd put that crepe up against Crepe Guy's any day of the week - if he promised to eat mine blindfolded so he wouldn't have to see how it looked! And those peaches! The same ripeness that contributed to their wet, misshapen appearance gave way to a beautiful burst of flavor that exceeded the one I'd eaten a few weeks ago in my farmer's market crepe.

As you can see from the picture, once you assemble and fold a crepe, most of the imperfections become harder to spot. Even if your discerning eater did take time to point out flaws, one bite into the sweet marriage of custard and ripe fruit would be enough to dispel even the crankiest hater.

Vanilla Custard Sauce
recipe from Gourmet Magazine - August 2000

Ingredients:
2 cups whole milk
1/2 cup sugar
5 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Bring and sugar to a simmer in a saucepan without stirring. Whisk yolks in a bowl until blended, then gradually whisk in the hot milk mixture. Return to saucepan and cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until sauce thickens enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon and registers 170 degrees on an instant read thermometer.

Immediately pour sauce through a fine sieve into a metal bowl and place bowl in a larger bowl of ice and cold water. Stir in vanilla and whisk custard occasionally until cool, then cover surface with a piece of wax paper to prevent skin from forming.

Chill until cold.

Crepes

Ingredients:
2 eggs
2 cups + 2 tablespoons milk
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons melted butter or oil
pinch of salt

Directions:
Whisk wet ingredients together. Add in the dry ingredients and whisk to combine (try to get the lumps out but it's ok if there are a few). Refrigerate batter for an hour or more. In hot , lightly greased fry pan, pour batter to cover the bottom in a thin layer. Flip when top of crepe looks dry. Fry for 15 seconds more and remove. Repeat until batter is gone.

Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

There was a time when I used to make spaghetti every Monday night. Even today, if I happen to be serving up any recipe involving pasta and spaghetti, Brian will ask, "is it Monday?" You know how most kids love "pasghetti"? - well, my Monday night dinner routine eventually made Brian decide he hated the stuff. Or so he said.

Sometimes I couldn't blame him for being less than ecstatic over Monday night meals. I had/have good recipes for homemade sauces but, when I was working on those Mondays, I sometimes cheated by buying the jars of pre-made sauces. I was always willing to buy whatever seemed the best, no matter the cost but, let's face it, store bought spaghetti sauce is never going to taste as good as what you make in your own home kitchen.

One of the things I really don't like about Ragu and all the other prepared brands is how much they don't absorb into the meat. Maybe this stemmed from not cooking patiently enough but, for whatever reason, I always felt that the sauce and meat were never truly blended together into one flavor unit. It was telling when a bit of the spaghetti meat would fall into the sink and with one bit of water immediately lose all sauce, reverting back to nothing more than browned ground beef. This is not exactly a recipe for a hearty flavor profile.

Obviously, if you cook a sauce and meat together all day, the two should truly blend in way more than a superficial, easy to wash off manner. That's exactly how it was with this bolognese sauce.
There were definitely some different components in this sauce. For instance, I've never put celery or carrot in my spaghetti sauce. The carrot was particularly worrisome. While it was simmering in the skillet, it seemed like an enormous amount of something just odd and visible enough to make Martin refuse to eat what I'd prepared.  As the sauce cooked through the hours, those carrots finally got absorbed into the body of the sauce such that all the orange was suddenly invisible, existing only as a flavor punch. Then there's the milk. I've never made a spaghetti sauce that included milk so I wondered if I was making a huge mistake in picking this recipe, but one taste quickly dispelled that worry. As with the carrots, all that milk finally got absorbed.

One more ingredient note should be mentioned - I loaded the recipe into my Paprika app on the iPad and then used that for a grocery list. When I got to the canned tomato aisle, I really thought it was a mistake that SIX fourteen oz. cans of tomato paste were needed. When you first dump the contents of your cans into the crock pot the meat is almost completely obliterated and for the first hours of cooking it seems as though the juices will never cook down enough to eliminate the runny-ness of so much liquid per can but in the end, everything evens out into one tasty sauce. That said, I might experiment with a little more meat next time.

I probably should have cut the ingredients in half as I have a huge amount left over. Hopefully it's a sauce that will freeze well. Maybe even long enough for some Monday night when Brian is home and I can give him a nostalgic surprise at dinner.


Slow Cooker Bolognese Sauce

Ingredients:
1 medium onion, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 stalk celery, finely chopped (1/2 cup)
1 carrot, finely chopped (3/4 cup)
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 pounds combined ground beef and pork, or meat-loaf mix (The store I visited doesn't do meat-loaf mix so I did a 70% to 30% ratio on beef to pork.)
1 cup milk
1 6-ounce can tomato paste
6 14-ounce cans diced tomatoes  (or 3  28 oz. cans!)
4 teaspoons kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Directions:
In a large skillet, combine the onion, celery, carrot, and olive oil and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, until tender, about 10 minutes.
Add the meat and cook, stirring frequently, until it loses its pink color. Add the milk. Increase heat to high and cook until the milk has evaporated. Transfer the mixture to a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker.
Return the skillet to the heat and add the tomato paste; cook over low heat to reduce its bitterness, about 5 minutes. Add the tomato paste to the cooker, along with the tomatoes, salt, and nutmeg.
NOTE: Midway through cooking, I felt the sauce tasted a little bitter so I added a bit of sugar. I have no idea how much. Maybe a teaspoon or tablespoon.
Cook on low for 8 hours, or on high for 4 hours

Chicken Pot Pie per Christine Ha

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the cooking show "Master Chef". Actually, it's kind of a family affair because Martin also eagerly awaits each new season's crew of home cooks who are vying for the title of master chef, as well as the lucrative cookbook deal that goes to the winner.

A few seasons ago, we were both deeply impressed by one contestant - a young woman who is blind but still cooks like a pro. You have to picture how the show goes. One week might find a challenge that includes grabbing a live lobster and preparing it, while the next might involve using knife skills to cut a chicken up within a tiny window of time. Nothing seemed to faze Christine, the blind contestant. It got to the point where we jokingly (?) wondered if the whole blind act was a ruse to gain sympathy from Gordon Ramsey and the other judges. I can't cook like Christine with both my eyes in working order so it was quite amazing and mystifying to watch this sightless young woman conquer every task put in front of her, all the way to final victory as that season's master chef.

This is one of Christine's recipes. Emily made the pie when we were in Cincinnati last Christmas and I really liked how it tasted. Even though I have a tried and true pot pie recipe Martin approves of, I decided to prepare this one a few weeks ago. It's both hearty and simple. all at the same time. If you like lots of veggies in your pie, this might not be the recipe for you but I'd at least give Christine's version a try. The potatoes more than make up for random veggies like peas and lima beans while the seasonings give this pie a unique and totally satisfying flavor.

After serving it for dinner one evening, I cut the remaining pie into slices and froze them. Even a former fast food addict like me loves being able to take out one of those slices and heat it for a quick, healthy lunch.

Christine Ha's Chicken Pot Pie

Ingredients:
3 tsp. butter
1 small yellow onion, minced
2 stalks celery, coarsely chopped
2 tsp. dried parsley
2 tsp. dried thyme
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 and 3/4 cups low sodium chicken broth
1 large Yukon gold potato, cut into 1 inch cubes
12 ounces cooked chicken, cubed
2 tsp. melted butter, for brushing the crust

Pie Crust:
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter cut into 16 pieces
1/3 cup ice cold water

Roll out half the pie crust into a 1/4 inch thickness Lay the dough in a 9 inch pie pan. In large pan over medium heat, melt 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of the butter. Add onion, celery, carrots, parsley, thyme, and oregano. Season with salt and pepper. Cover, cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until veggies are tender. Add the stock to the pan, raise the heat, and bring to a boil. Add the potato. Cover and cook for 10 to 12 minutes.

In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt the remaining 1 and 1/2 tablespoons butter. Stir in the flour, whisking until it is free of lumps. Add milk and chicken mixture to vegetable mixture and cook, uncovered for 20 minutes or until liquid is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and pour filling into pie pan. Roll out remaining pie dough to 1/4 inch thickness and drape over filling. Trim overhanging dough, flute edges to seal. Brush melted butter over top crust. Using a sharp knife, make four slits on top.

Bake for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 350 degrees and bake for 35 minutes longer or until crust is golden. Serve warm.

Caprese Panini

One of my friends recently added a facebook cover photo that says "August is the Sunday of Summer". In California, we know this isn't a true sentiment as some of our hottest months are still coming up, all the way through November. Sigh. Even so, with Labor Day looming and today bright and sunshiny, there is a feel of those last remnants of the unhurried pace of summer months. How I do NOT look forward to going back into a schedule that means meetings and obligations every day of the week! I'd rather stay home and eat caprese panini sandwiches like the one I made today. It's adapted from something I found online, except that one wasn't cooked in a panini grill and had a few variations on the ingredients. 

This version is absolutely delicious. The kind of good where you finish the first one and want to make a second to eat, right there on the spot. Not that I did this, just that my taste buds were screaming out, "MORE! Give us more of that delicious yummyness! One was great, two will be even more satisfying." Reason and experience counter with the knowledge that second helpings go past imagined delight and into a realm of bloated overeating that rarely feels as good as the first time around. But you tell that to my taste buds!

Caprese Panini

Olive oil

garlic cloves

Rustic italian bread loaf

Mozzarella cheese slices

Red pepper, grilled, sort of

Heirloom tomato slices

Fresh large basil leaves

kosher salt

pepper

1. Cut open a red pepper and lay a flat side on the panini grill. Let it cook until it gets softer and has the grilling marks. Turn and do the other side the same way. Cut the red pepper into thin slices.

2. Slice a garlic clove in half and rub it on the one side of two pieces of the bread, sliced thick. 

3. Brush olive oil on the same sides of the two pieces of bread

4. Layer mozzarella cheese slices, heirloom tomatoes, and the red pepper slices on non-oiled sides of the bread slices. 

5. Grill the sandwich on the panini grill until the cheese is melted and those nice grill marks appear.

6. Once grilled, open the sandwich and insert the basil leaves. Apply salt and pepper to taste. 

How easy is that? The recipe I saw online called for a more traditional roasting of the red pepper but who's got time for that when it's past lunch and you're hungry? Not this impatient cook. 

Pure and Simple Potato Salad

I like Neiman Marcus even though it's one of those stores that sometimes makes you feel like pond scum just for daring to step through the doors. I think they deliberately hire impossibly uppity folks to stand by the door and glare at you contemptuously as you try to sneak in wearing Walmart jeans and a Target top.

It's definitely not a place where I can afford to buy all my clothes - or any of them - but I sure like looking at what the nobility are wearing. And, for the record, I think the Neiman Marcus stores I've been in are legions ahead of Nordstroms. Why is it that I always think of Nordstroms as a pretender? An average kind of place masquerading as better than the rest.

You're probably wondering why I'm writing about stores on a cooking blog. Good question. This recipe actually comes from a Neiman Marcus cookbook that I've had for many years. It was probably one of my mom's garage sale purchases, appropriated for use on Riverhead Dr. The book's title is "Pure and Simple", which I also consider an apt description of Neiman Marcus, in general. Well, maybe in the case of the store, the title might need to be expanded to "Pure and Simple and Really, Really Expensive"

I loved this salad. Martin didn't. Remember, though, he's the one who likes the tubs of mayonnaisy store-bought potato salad, so what does he know????

Pure and Simple Potato Salad

3 medium sized red potatoes
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp white vinegar
2-3 stalks celery sliced
1 small onion finely diced
1/4 cup chopped gherkin pickles (I used a dill and loved that burst of tang.)
1 tsp. celery seed
3/4 cup mayonnaise (I used less because I don't love mayonnaise. Mine was an eyeball and taste affair. When it appeared the mixture was lightly coated and I could taste that it seemed like enough, I stopped. It ended up being a little less than 1/2 cup.)
3 hard cooked eggs, sliced
Paprika sprinkling on top of finished salad

Directions
Cover potatoes with water in a covered pot. Cook about 25-30 minutes. Drain, peel, quarter and slice. Add sugar and vinegar. Add celery, onion, pickle and celery seed. Stir. Add mayonnaise and sliced eggs. Serve chilled.

Popovers

I had a colossal fail in the kitchen a few nights ago. Martin loves popovers so I decided to up my game a little and make Smitten Kitchens corn, buttermilk and chive popovers. Doesn't that sound divine? Sure, hubby might've turned up his nose at the exoticness of buttermilk (gasp!) and corn! (even bigger gasp!) in a popover but who would've cared if I'd been able to successfully execute the recipe??? I'm quite sure I could've stepped in and eaten the whole batch, if necessary.

Everything seemed to be going well. In checking Deb's pictures along the way, my version seemed to be right on par for a perfect popover but what came out of the oven turned out to be more like a dense (but flavorful!) muffin that stubbornly stuck to the pan and completely bypassed the lovely popped up airiness of what it was supposed to aspire to. What the heck? I am NOT a neophyte to popovers - there was a time when I'd make them two or three nights a week, just because they seemed to make Martin happy. A roll or a biscuit was one thing but popovers? Something about seeing one on his plate seemed to make my hubby surmise that I'd been slaving over a hot stove all day, just to serve him up the perfect accompaniment to whatever meal we were having.

Sure, I should go back and figure out where I went wrong but, for last night, I opted for assured success with Ina Garten's basic popover recipe. And, even though I've created plenty of good popovers in the past, it felt like a little tiny miracle peeking though the oven window and seeing those little doughy buns gloriously rise to lofty heights. And then, miracle upon miracle, they slid right out of the pan and onto Martin's waiting plate. From utter ignominy to glorious popover perfection, all in a day's time.

Ina Garten's Basic Popovers


Ingredients
1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus softened butter for greasing pans
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature

Directions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Generously grease aluminum popover pans or Pyrex custard cups with softened butter. You'll need enough pans to make 12 popovers. Place the pans in the oven for exactly 2 minutes to preheat. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, salt, eggs, milk, and melted butter until smooth. The batter will be thin. Fill the popover pans less than half full and bake for exactly 30 minutes. Do not peek.
(NOTE: I did peek through the oven window and decided they looked done enough at 25 minutes. They were perfect.)

Crock Pot Pot Roast

Our summer hot spell hasn't been conducive to heating up the kitchen with a fiery oven. I actually used to scoff at the idea that an enclosed, fully self-contained box could warm up an entire room but, having experienced that whole sweat running down my face in the midst of a cooking frenzy, I'm going to have to change my beliefs. Maybe it's the combination of scurrying to put together a meal, along with the heated oven, all I know is I can go from just cool as a cucumber fine to ready to drop over from heat prostration,  in about 5 minutes time.

All that to say, I decided to do my roast in the crock pot yesterday. If it were up to me, I would've eaten the leftovers from a cornbread salad and called it a suitable summer meal but the hubby wants his meat and potatoes, no matter how hot it might be outside - or inside.

What can you say about a recipe that involves cutting up a few potatoes and carrots, dumping on some packets of sauces, and then waiting for the outcome? Oh wait, I know something "newsworthy" in cooking up this particular meal! I bought and used, for the first time, those crock pot liners you see next to the aluminum foil and saran wrap in the grocery store. My crockpot is a large oval shape so I worried when the bag seemed to be more rounded but, once it was all unpleated and separated, darned if the handy little contraption didn't fit perfectly over the bowl of my crockpot. And, just as promised on the box, clean up was a breeze thanks to the liner.

Oh, and the roast turned out incredibly moist and tasty. I liked the "gravy" because it wasn't quite as heavy as what comes out when using cream of mushroom soup. This was more like a hybrid between gravy and au jus.

As with anything crockpot, your house will have that "yes, I'm in control of my schedule and a fabulous home-cooked meal is awaiting you at the end of the day" promise wafting through the air from morning until time to eat. What man can resist that aroma letting him know all is right in his castle?

Before we go any further, I should confess that my picture comes from the website where I got this recipe so thank you Marie, of Mariescookingadventure. You're just going to have to trust me on this one - in real life my final product looked identical to Marie's, but every time I try to immortalize roast via photography, my version turns out looking like a big pile of dog food. Or worse.

Best Ever Pot Roast
from Mariescookingadventure.com


What you need:
NOTE: The "I use" annotations are from Marie. I followed her advice as closely as possible, except for the Western Brand italian dressing. No such thing in my store so I went with Stater Bro. brand. 

A 2-5 lb roast. (any kind)  (I use a lean cut, about 3 lbs.)
1 envelope ranch dressing (dried) (I use Hidden Valley brand, not buttermilk)
1 envelope Italian dressing   (I use Western Family brand.)
1 envelope brown gravy mix  (I use McCormick brand)
Potatoes and Carrots  (enough to fill a bottom layer on your CrockPot) I use about 7 or 8 baby red potatoes and a half pound of carrots to feed 3-4.
1 to 1-1/2 cup water
 What you do:

 Put any carrots and potatoes in the bottom of your CrockPot. I usually quarter my potatoes and use baby carrots.
Put Roast on top of vegetables.
Sprinkle all 3 spice envelopes on top.
Add the water.
Cook on LOW for 6-10 hours until tender and veggies cooked through.It is better to cook the roast longer. This will be sooooo tender and yummy!!  (I (Barbara, not Marie) set my crockpot to 10 hours. She (Marie, not Barbara) was right - very tender and very yummy.) 

Peaches N Cream Bars

I know, I know - back to the peaches. There's just something I can't resist about eating peaches in the summer time. It doesn't matter what form they're in, I crave that juicy taste that seems to capture all the glory of these warm sunny days of the season.

It helps when you visit your local farmer's market and they hand you a sample of what has to be about as perfect a peach as can be grown. One small bite? I think not - my basket was soon crammed with a handful of the fruit to take home and devour throughout the week. They're fabulous as a quick pick up and eat treat but they also taste mighty good baked into desserts such as this one.

Not being a lover of cream cheese, it's a wonder I decided to make these bars but I'm glad I did. The sweet cakey batter more than compensates for heaviness I often associate with cream cheese laden foods. And those peaches!!! They give each piece a golden glow and they taste well...like the essence of summer.

It's a cinch to put this dessert together and, if my target group of friends is any indication, the entire pan will be gobbled up in no time. I served mine with fresh whipped cream but I think this would also taste great with a big dollop of vanilla ice-cream on top. (But, then again, isn't that true of about any dessert?)

Peaches N Cream Bars
recipe from justapinch.com

Ingredients:

1 box yellow or white cake mix (I used yellow)
1/3 cup butter, softened
2 eggs
1 - 29 oz. can peach slices, drained  (I used fresh peaches)
1 - 8 oz. cream cheese bar
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350.
Combine cake mix, butter and 1 egg in a large bowl and mix with a fork until crumbly. (Note: maybe my egg was extra big or my butter extra soft but, for whatever reason, my mixture was a little wetter than I'd imagined when they spoke of a crumbly texture. Seems to have worked out fine.)
Set aside 1 1/2 cups of crumbs.
Press remaining crumbs into a greased 9x13 pan and bake for 10 minutes.
While baking, cut your peaches into 1 inch pieces.
When 10 minutes is up, spoon peaches over bottom layer.
Combine cream cheese, sugar, 1 egg and vanilla in a bowl and beat until creamy.
Spread over peaches and sprinkle reserved crumbs over top.
Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool before serving.