Chufi

I think that's a wonderful attitude towards 'eating heathily'. I don't believe any regimen or 'diet' that one looks on as a punishment or a series of 'don'ts', can work. And since your food looks delicious, I can see that you want to stick to this lifestyle! I love those teamugs!

they look wonderful Susan! Interesting that they are cooked one side only, I wonder why?

I really like it in a gratin (either mixed with potatoes or on it's own). Parboil the slices (but don't overcook) and cover with a cheesy bechamel, or just dot with butter, sprinkle with breadcrumbs and bake. Creamyness seems to go really well with it. Jane Grigson has a recipe in her Vegetable Book for stuffed baked kohlrabi: the bulbs are simmered until half cooked, hollowed out, and filled with a ground meat mixture (she says veal/onion/parsley/lemonrind, but any kind of flavoring would work I think), dotted with butter, baked (with some stock added to the baking dish to prevent drying out).

Since we're talking sandwiches around the world, here are the two very best Dutch sandwiches: broodje kroket (deepfried veal croquette, with lots of mustard) and broodje halfom: larded liver and pekelvlees, a kind of pastrami

Cute rabbit (even though it's eating your garden!) And indeed, a wonderful view. Looking forward to seeing your meals this week! Can you tell us a bit about your cooking, what inspires you, your favorite types of food?

when I have made crepes with buckwheat flour combined with regular flour in the past, I was always disappointed because the buckwheat flavor did not come through. These were great, and really easy to make, just as long as you only turn them over after the top has set. Here are the proprtions, slightly adapted from Thomas' recipe: 350 ml. liquid (half water, half milk) 60 ml. beer 2 eggs 125 grams buckwheat flour 1 tablespoon oil 1 tablespoon sugar pinch salt I whisked with my immersion blender and let the batter rest for a couple of hours.

they look so good ludja! I made that walnut-filled version once, a long time ago. It was delicious, very rich! So, I made buckwheat pancakes today. I think I have read before that you can't make buckwheat crepes out of only buckwheat flour, but Anna Thomas has a recipe for these and her recipes always work, so I gave it a try. They came out great, toothsome with a lovely nutty buckwheat flavor. I filled them with a mixture of Chinese leaf, onion, dried porcini and smoked ham, and a dollop of creme fraiche. Sprinkled with cheese and baked. They were fantastic!

Tupac, I really enjoyed sharing your week. Your family is very very lucky to have you cooking for them! The baked Caprese salad is on my 'must try' list. And thanks for the pictures of the garden. For someone in a city apartment, with only a tiny balcony, a well-tended garden is lovely to see.

I think you're right...I've seen lots of recipes that say the crepe batter should be left to rest overnight. I remember watching a Tyler Florence show where he went to Europe to learn how to make crepes Suzette from a chef at a Michelin-starred restaurant, and the chef also said to let the batter rest overnight. ← While this does make sense (and Harold McGee says the batter for crepes shold stand an hour or more "to allow proteins and damaged starch to absorb water and air bubbles to rise and escape"... ) I have also seen recipes from sources that I trust, that say it does not really matter much for the final product wether the batter rests or not. I am rarely organized enough to make batter ahead of time. Although, to contradict myself, I have a buckwheat batter in the fridge right now, resting btw McGee also says that minimal whisking is key to achieve a delicate tender crepe. Minimal stirring = less gluten development. So, maybe we can conclude, that the more you whisk, the longer the batter should rest to relax the gluten again?

Gorgeous Bryan. My little douze crepe cake stands humbly in the shadow of your achievement! Suzy, you reminded me I have some buckwheat flour so I think I should make buckwheat crepes too! (in my ongoing quest to "cook from the pantry" ) Grub those crepes look great, lovely browning.

I think they're beautiful, in a somewhat unsettling sort of way. It's real food.... about as far away from styrofoam packed supermarket meat as you can get.

Welcome LoriJean! Those scones look lovely, especially with the crunchy sugar on top. Looking forward to seeing more of your food!

I think that would be a great idea. To be honest the flavoring was overpowered by the lemon curd, but tasted delicious in the crepe I ate while I was assembling the thing. So putting it in the pastry cream for a filling would be great. I think pastis is fine, I used pernod, because that's what I had.

I finally made something Sardinian again today, from the Bugiali book: aubergine baked with a paste of sundried tomatoes, olive oil, parsley and garlic. It was very good, salty and rich and the aubergine nice and soft from roasting. here it is on my dinner plate with lots of other non-Sardinian stuff.

So I made crepes. I used Jane Grigson's recipe from her Fruit book: 3 eggs, 60 ml. water, 60 ml. milk, 6 tablespoons flour. The batter was very thin and I was able to make very thin, delicate, lacy pancakes. Fried them all in a little bit of butter. I made 13, ate one, so this is DouzeCrepe cake, layered with lemon curd: The crepes were soooo good. In a flash of inpsiration , I added a tablespoon of basque aromatic mixture to the batter. I made this last week to make the Gateau basque from Paula Wolfert's Cooking of Southwest France. I am telling you, even if you never want to make this cake, you have to make this aromatic mixture.. it's rum, brandy, anisette, almond extract, and orangeflowerwater, and it has the most haunting and delicious aroma. The crepes were delicately flavored with it. Really really good. edited to change onze to douze, I was never good at french maths

They freeze really well. if you want to keep them longer.. I agree! I just cooked a stack (pics will follow later.. I'm just browsing eGullet while I wait for dinner to finish cooking in the oven ) and I was thinking the exact same thing! just a tiny bit of butter in the pan for every pancake.

The recipe, and more pictures, is here in the Dutch Cooking thread. I am craving some right now as well... and I just had dinner!

here's the Dutch spekpannenkoek. The bacon is fried first, then the batter is poured on top of the bacon. Serve with golden syrup. I don't think these actually qualify as crepes, because they are thicker. But I had to show them off anyway!

Thanks Kerry for the soup-idea! I never would have thought of making soup with ground beef, but it came out really well. I also found some turnips in the fridge and they went in as well. The soup was flavored with caraway and paprika: I also had a very large bunch of parsley. Used some of the ever-present frozen puff pastry from the freezer and made parsley/ fried onion/ pecorino turnovers. I looked at my spice jars for something else to use up and found sesame seeds. The blue cheese did not get used, because I felt it would not suit the soup. There's always tomorrow...

Ooohh, I really like the idea of soup. I also thought of the crepe cook-off, and that crepes with an onion/bluecheese filling would be very nice. I'll report back!

I have this problem with flours. I'm always buying interesting flours (chickpea, buckwheat, etc) and then forget to use them up.. But they look so nice, those powdery different shades of pastel in their glass jars...

I want to go shopping in my fridge tonight too! I have some ground very lean beef, half a green cabbage, peas in the freezer, a piece of Bleu d' Auvergne, and a lot of eggs that need using up. No potatoes in the house which is too bad, cause I kind of feel like potatoes. I'm thinking of soba noodles with the beef, quickly stirfried, with some peas. Sriracha on top - much like Megans pantry dinner upthread. But can I do something with the cabbage, blue cheese, eggs and onions?

That pesto looks so good! Together with the saltimbocca, that's very much my kind of dinner. Why do you blanch the basil? Does it make for easier processing? I would be worried that it would dull the flavor of the basil... does it?

Any thoughts on how thin a crepe should be? To clear up my language confusion here.. what Americans call a pancake, is not the same as a crepe, right? The Dutch pannenkoek is the size of the crepes in Sam's pictures, but much thicker though.

What fun! I love your posts in the Dinner thread and I'm looking forward to a more detailed description of your Texan foodlife!