Strawberry Crepes

Crepes with Nutella and strawberry sauce.


First, mix up the crepe batter. It needs to sit out for about twenty minutes to become room temperature. While it sits, I cut up the strawberries and set them to simmer on low heat with honey.


Changed pans, added pure cacao nibs for crunch.


Whisk up the batter again and start heating the pan with a small amount of butter/oil. I set my electric stove to just below 4 (it goes to 10).


Start making crepes. I use a 1/4 c. measuring cup to pour the batter in the center of the pan, then swirl it around by tilting the pan.


Crispy edges, time to flip the crepe. This usually takes about 1-2 minutes.


Crepe is ready. This takes another minute or so, depending on crepe thickness.

Once the crepe is ready, set it flat on a plate. Pour another 1/4 cup crepe batter into the pan and let cook while spreading Nutella inside the cooked crepe and rolling it up.


Nutella-filled, strawberry sauce-topped crepes.


Delicious!

Evil Bitch-Monster of Death's Crepe Recipe
1/4 c. milk
1/4 c. water
1/2 c. flour
1/8 tsp. salt
1 egg
1 tblsp oil, or melted butter
1-2 tblsp sugar (optional)

Protein modification:
replace 1/4 c. milk with 1/4 c. water (or keep milk and add a couple tblsps water -- this is mostly to dissolve the protein powder)
replace 1/2 c. flour with 1/4 c. flour, 1/2 c. protein powder
-- these tend to be more sticky than regular crepes, so be sure to butter the pan and cook slightly longer.

Mix all ingredients together with a fork or whisk until smooth; let sit 20 mins or so (fold some laundry, do some dishes, make some fruit compote). Heat a little butter or oil in pan on almost-medium heat, pour 1/4 cup at a time in center and rotate pan to spread into flat crepe shape. Cook 1-2 minutes, flip, cook 1-2 minutes more. Makes 4 crepes (double or triple recipe for more crepes).

Evil Bitch-Monster of Death's Fruit compote (can be made while letting crepe batter sit):

take out some cream cheese to soften, 2-3 oz. (optional)
frozen or fresh fruit (1/3 to 1/2 cup is plenty to fill 4 crepes)
honey or granulated sugar (2-3 tblsps, more if you like it really sweet or are using bitter fruit like raspberries)

Boil fruit and sugar/honey on medium heat in a pan, reduce to simmer for about 10 mins, stirring and mushing so nothing sticks to the pan. Pour into bowl, beat in optional cream cheese with fork or something, fridge to chill. (Clean pan, cook crepes).
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Strawberry Pies

Fresh strawberries make delicious treats.

This is a sugar-free white chocolate pie I made with instant Jello pudding mix. Ignore the ratios on the package and use at most 2 cups cold milk to 2 packages Jello pudding mix. I poured it into a shortbread Ready Crust.


Strawberry Lime Cheesecake

Into my standard cheesecake ratios, I stirred blenderized strawberries and lime juice. This made a much less viscous filling that I baked for longer at a lower temperature (and tried not to spill on the way in the oven). About a cup and a half of chopped strawberries went in, and 1/4 cup lime juice. I left out the melted chocolate for this one. It is in a chocolate Ready Crust.


For the glaze on the strawberries, I melted orange marmalade and concord grape jelly in a pan with some honey and let it cool before applying. Next time I plan this, I will either beat chopped mint into the cheesecake batter or stir it into the glaze.


Evil Bitch-Monster of Death's Simple Cheesecake Recipe

The Pie (9")
    2 8-oz. packages cream cheese, softened
      (Neuf works fine, fat free does not)
    2/3 cup sugar
    1 tsp. vanilla or almond extract,
     or 2 tsp. liqueur (optional)
    seasonings (optional), tsps for strong stuff,
     tblsps for pumpkin pie spice, etc.
     -- Beat for about 2 minutes

    add 2 eggs
    add 3 - 4 oz. melted chocolate
    (white chocolate goes with everything)
     -- whisk (or beat a little more on low setting)

Pour in shell* and bake @ 335 for 40 - 50 minutes (for 10" pie, bake @ 325 for 60 - 70 minutes). Let cool -- when you can touch it without burning yourself, cover and set in fridge for 3 - 4 hours. (I have made this on a time constraint and used the freezer to set in ~2 hours. Just don't let it freeze.) *If using a dough shell instead of a crumb shell, bake the empty shell for about five minutes @ 375 to harden it before pouring in the cheesecake batter.

Chocolate topping:
However much melted chocolate you use (3 - 4 oz. is plenty to decorate the top), add 1 tsp shortening (Crisco) per 2 oz. chocolate. You can also melt enough chocolate to make a top layer. This looks great, until you cut the cake with anything other than a samurai sword and the chocolate falls apart.

Fruit topping:
If you use preserves, it mixes well during baking. For fresh fruit, I put it on after the pie cools or blenderize it for mixing in with the pie. Finely chopped fresh fruit can also go in the pie, just stir in carefully after adding the eggs and chocolate.
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Rice Crispy Treats with Chocolate and Butterscotch

Rice crispy treats of awesome!


I stirred butterscotch chips into the marshmallows as I melted them in the butter. I was planning to also use peanut butter, but I left my peanut butter at the office.


On top, I put melted chocolate chips, then melted butterscotch chips. I had left over rice crispies from making the marshmallow squares, so I put them on top, too. I thought they would stick in the chocolate/butterscotch, but not so much. For the top "layer," I put a simple sugar syrup to hold the loose rice crispies in place.

Note to self: lightly press in pan, not 'crush crispies into a solid brick.'

These were a big hit with the student assistants. A nice end-of-the-semester treat. Read More......