THE BEST (and EASY!) Sticky Pecan Rolls

My husband and I are big brunch people, and we love to try new recipes.  But there is one recipe (well, two actually) that we keep going back to - it's now to the point where we just can't have brunch without these.  Sticky, sweet, and savory my MIL's "Sticky Pecan Rolls" are seriously to die for.  Give them a try - they're easy to make and I promise you, they'll change your life.

Sticky Pecan Rolls

On the first day, you'll make a ball of dough and refrigerate it overnight:

For the ball of dough
1 pkg (1 tbsp) active dry yeast
1 cup warm water
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter softened
1 egg
3 1/4 - 3 1/2 cups flour

Dissolve the yeast in the warm water in your mixer bowl - wait a few minutes to make sure it foams to ensure the yeast is active.  Stir in 1/4 cup white sugar, salt, 2 tbsp butter, egg, and 2 cups flour.  Beat until smooth.  Work in remaining flour until dough is easy to handle.  Place in greased bowl.  Cover surface of dough with some shortening or butter so it doesn't dry out.  Cover with lid, cling wrap, or whatever you have.  Refrigerate overnight or up to 5 days.

On the second day, you'll roll out the dough, sprinkle the filling, roll it up, slice it, and bake it:

For the topping
1 stick butter, softened
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1.5 tbsp corn syrup (baking section of store)
2/3 cup pecan bits

For the filling
1/2 stick butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
3 tsp cinnamon

Stir together all the topping ingredients except the nuts.  Spread in the bottom of a 9x13 pan.  Sprinkle the nuts on.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the filling.  Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface so it's roughly a 15" x 9" rectangle.  Spread it with the butter.  Sprinkle it with the cinnamon-sugar.  Roll it up the long, skinny way.  Slice into 15 one-inch slices.  Place slices on top of "topping layer" in pan - no need to grease the pan.  Cover with a wet cloth and let rise in a warm place until double (up to 90 minutes).  Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes.  Immediately invert on tray (take a cookie tray, cover the top of the pan, and flip the whole thing).

Dough is easy to roll, and your rectangle doesn't have to be perfect.

Slices of the roll sitting in the "topping" ready to rise.

Just before rising.

Risen and baked!

Inverted onto cookie tray.

Ready to pull apart individual rolls and chow down!

Chewy, sweet, savory perfection!

Sour Cream Blueberry Pancakes with Warm Buttermilk Syrup

Brunch in the springtime is an obsession for me.  It's just so fitting, right?  Blooming flowers, fresh air, perfect weather, and ripening berries ... makes you want to enjoy!  

The blueberries at Wilson Farm looked amazing yesterday.  Had to get some, and M could not have been happier.  Proximity to Wilson Farm is one of the best things about where we live.  Fairly reasonable prices for top-notch produce and artisan breads and cheeses.  In the autumn there are hayrides for kids and, true to the region, hot fresh apple cider donuts.

My brunch obsession is also rooted in my husband's schedule.  Because his days off are rare, I like to go all out when he does have one.  I'll often wake up before the baby, happy and excited.  Then I'll start scheming and cooking based on what we have on hand.  I usually finish up around 10 a.m. and I'm happy to offer my sleep-deprived sweetheart the best reason I can concoct for him to get out of bed.  I do this every single morning he has off, unless we go out to brunch.  I love it.  (Although I'm wondering if I'll be able to keep it up once we have two kids).

Finally, and more recently... my "morning sickness" usually starts up around 10 am and gets worse All. Day.  Long.  So breakfast has been my only enjoyable meal for some time now.  I am utterly, completely out of dinners that sound even remotely appetizing.  But that's a topic for another blog entry, one you can read at your own risk.

Today's finds were unanimously deemed blog-worthy (even Baby M agreed...).  I had extra buttermilk and sour cream and figured there had to be a way of combining these with blueberries for T.D.F. results.  I scanned a few recipes and finally settled on this one.  Oh my.  I doubt I'll ever make pancakes that don't call for sour cream and buttermilk again.  These were *perfect*.  So light and with just the right flavor.  I'll be using this base from now on, whether I add blueberries or not.

De-lish!

This was my second time making the warm buttermilk syrup and I implore you to try it. It's SO easy to make - throw a few ingredients in a saucepan and simmer 7 minutes, done.  And it just adds more flavor dimension than maple syrup, which has always been a little too sweet for me.  It's got somewhat of a caramel taste, and the leftovers are amazing in coffee.  It's perfect on any type of pancake but I think you'll agree if you try this combo:  Blueberries, buttermilk, and sour cream were destined for each other.

Buttermilk Sour Cream Blueberry Pancakes

1 cup flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt (a pinch)
3 tbsp sugar
1 egg
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup sour cream
3 tbsp melted butter
1/2 cup blueberries (do not add more)

Combine dry ingredients in bowl; whisk to blend.  Combine wet ingredients in a separate bowl; whisk to blend.  Combine wet and dry ingredients with whisk.  Fold in blueberries.  Heat a griddle or pan to medium-high heat, and lubricate as desired (I used PAM).  Spoon desired amount of batter onto griddle. Once pancake has set, reduce heat to fairly low for even cooking.  You want to start out hotter so that the batter doesn't spread too far, but the reduce heat so you can cook through without burning the outside.  Flip when bubbles appear.  Flipping works best if you use one extra wide "pancake" spatula (like the one mentioned here) and one regular spatula.

Please heed the above advice about adjusting the heat on these pancakes.  They are a little fussier than most - but well worth the extra effort.  

Warm Buttermilk Syrup

3/4 cup sugar
half as much buttermilk (half of your 3/4 measuring cup)
1/2 stick butter
1 tbsp light corn syrup (don't bother measuring; just squirt it in)
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla

In a saucepan, bring everything to a boil, and simmer 7 minutes.  Serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

Leftovers may be reheated or added to coffee for a "caramel macchiato" effect.

Brunch away!

Mango-Blueberry Muffins with Lime-Almond Glaze

These.  Were.  AMAZING.

They take a little more effort than classic blueberry muffins but are well worth it.  Tangy but still sweet, unique, a bit tropical... perfect.

If you use fresh mangoes (which I did) you'll need to make sure you have 2 ripe ones on hand - the original recipe gives the option of using frozen, but I can't vouch for that since I haven't tried it.  Plus, what's better than fresh mangoes??  I recommend using "champagne mangoes" - the yellow, flatter kind.  March is really the month for mangoes; they're pretty much the only seasonal enjoyment I take at a time when I'm usually SO done with winter weather.  You can still find them right now though... try to buy them yellow and wait until they're just getting soft and having a slight bit of give.

Here's a great video on how to best cut a mango.  I find that once I slice off the two big, flat pieces, it's best to cut those into strips and then use a knife to scrape the skin off the strips.

Here's the recipe, adapted from About.Com South American Food.  It makes 21 muffins.

For the Muffins:

• 2 and 3/4 cup flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup buttermilk
• 2 tsp vanilla
• 1 tsp almond extract
• 1 cup cubed mango, fresh or frozen (I used fresh - 2-3 mangoes)
• Juice of 1 lime (a little over 1 tbsp) - juice a fresh lime, it's worth it**
• 1 cup blueberries, fresh or frozen (I used fresh)

For the Glaze:

• 3 tbsp butter
• 1 and 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tbsp lime juice
• 3/4 tsp almond flavoring
• 2-3 tbsp milk or cream, depending on how thin or thick you want it
• 1-2 pinches salt
• Coconut shreds or sliced almonds for garnish, if you wish

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425.  Line muffin tin with paper liners.  Mix together flour, salt, baking powder, and sugar in a large bowl.  In a small bowl, whisk the egg, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla.  In a blender or food processor, puree the mango with the lime juice until smooth.  Gently mix the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring until just barely mixed.  Toss the blueberries with 1-2 tbsp flour to coat; gently fold into batter.  Fill muffin tins 3/4 full, almost to the top.

Bake at 425 for 5 minutes, then lower temp to 350 and bake another 10.  Check for doneness; muffins should be domed on top and firm or spring back to the touch.  If not done, bake another 5 minutes until done.

Cool muffins while you make the glaze.  Melt the butter, and whisk in the powdered sugar, milk/cream, lime juice, salt, and almond extract.  To glaze, you can either place the glaze in a bowl and dunk the muffin in top down (if it's a thinner glaze) or frost like a cupcake.  We LOVED this glaze and we preferred frosting it with slightly thicker glaze.

Citrus Sweet Rolls (our Christmas recipe)

Oh.  My.  GOSH.  When my husband and I first bit into these rolls we were absolutely blown away.  Better than my wildest dreams, these rolls had it all:  Moist, stretchy dough texture - even on the outside of the roll, sweet citrus zing, and a hint of savory (if you do the cream cheese frosting - I now prefer a citrus glaze, details below!).

I love how citrus in seasonal in the winter - really brightens it up!

I wrote in an old blog entry that one of my goals is to try as many recipes as possible so that I can find THE best recipes to be the seasonal staples of my children's childhoods. Devouring my first roll I knew: I had arrived.  I'd found THE #1 Christmas morning recipe for my family.  For us, there can be no more important recipe. Of course, it'll be awhile before I'm hosting my own Christmases.  But for now, I'm thinking our tree-decorating day and whatever day we celebrate Christmas in Boston will include this recipe... and I'll make it at NO other time of the year, to preserve its magic.

Here it is, with pics. I tweaked and combined two different recipes to arrive at our final creation.

For the dough:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/4 tsp instant dry yeast
pinch of salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs, lightly whisked

For the filling:
1 stick butter, softened
Zest of 1 orange
1 tsp orange extract
3/4 cup brown sugar (I used dark)

If you like cream cheese icing - leave butter and cream cheese out in advance!:
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
1 stick butter, softened
1.5 cups confectioners' (powdered) sugar
1 teaspoons orange extract

If you prefer a citrus glaze:
1/4 cup orange juice
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 cups confectioners (powedered) sugar)
pinch salt
2-3 tbsp milk or cream, as preferred for consistency
Zest of 1 orange

Directions (takes a little time, but not at all difficult):

Place the flour sugar, yeast, and salt in a mixing bowl.  Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the buttermilk - this should bring it to a little warmer than room temp (too hot will kill the yeast), swish it around in the pan and add it to the bowl of dry ingredients.  Lightly whisk the eggs - just use the same pan you used for the butter/milk mixture, and add those too.  Mix in mixer a little until it comes together - use a dough hook attachment if you have one - then knead with your hands for about 7 minutes.  Place in a lightly greased or oiled bowl and flip it over so the top of the dough is also greased.  Cover (I use a wet dishcloth for moisture) and let rise in a warm place (I turn my oven on and off briefly so that the oven is slightly warm) for 2.5 hours or until doubled.

You should definitely invest in these baking mats, it is practically miraculous how the dough does not stick to them at all even without flouring them!  Check it out:

While dough rises, prepare the filling.  Simply mix everything together.  Then grease or butter a 9 x 12 inch baking pan.

Punch dough down, and again turn it out on lightly floured surface or baking mat.  Roll until it's about 18 inches by 12ish (doesn't have to be perfect).  Spread the filling evenly all over.

Spreading the filling is a great time for kids to help!

Roll up, starting at one of the longer (18") sides.  Once rolled, slice it into about 12 slices (so, 1.5 inches each to make 18 inches) - doesn't have to be perfect!!  By the way, I'm told unwaxed floss is great for the slicing, but I use this dough cutter by OXO - it's cheap and it's also really handy for scraping flour off surfaces and into the trash.  Place the slices as evenly as you can in the prepared baking dish.  At this point, you can cover and refrigerate overnight if you prefer!

Cover (I used the same moist dishcloth but you could use plastic wrap, you may want to grease it a little because it'll stick a little bit) and let rise again, again in a warm place, for about an hour, until rolls are all touching each other and appear to be the proper size.  If you refrigerated overnight, you may need to let them rise an extra 30 mins or so.

Fully risen, ready for the oven!

Then bake at 375 for 15 minutes, or until lightly golden on top.  Do not overcook!!!!  Or undercook.  It's worth it to test a roll with a knife, you can just eat that one later.  While it cooks and cools a bit, prepare the glaze OR the cream cheese frosting.  Just add everything in and stir (glaze) or mix in mixer (frosting).

Cover with the glaze (or frosting).  Serve.  Heavenly!!!!

Frosted.  PERFECT December morning.

And here's the final product with the citrus glaze.  I really can't pick a winner!!!

Finally! A Great Family Weekend (+ German Apple Pancake Recipe)

Usually if I want to think about an amazing weekend packed with all sorts of fun and family and friends, I read Erica Carlson's blog.  This girl has such a great life and such a sweet way of appreciating all of the little pleasures life offers... I love her blog and can't get enough.  Plus the recipes are fabulous.

But this weekend I was thrilled to be in my own life.  I didn't spend a single day of it pretending it was still another weekday while figuring out how to fill the time with my husband at work and my few Boston-area friends spending quality time with their own families.  Instead, ALL weekend, *I* got to have quality family time.  And by ALL weekend, I mean that he didn't even work from home.  I can't recall the last time he even had an entire weekend "off" (August, I think!) but I assure you the last time he actually didn't work over a weekend was before he started residency, over two years ago.  And he did have his scheduled vacation last month, which was great... but it was crazy-busy seeing no fewer than sixteen friends in St. Louis and nineteen family members in Chicago and Madison.  Whew!

Anyway, we needed a weekend together as a family.  I don't think I even realized how badly we needed it until we finally had it.  Bonus:  My husband even managed to wake up well before noon both days.  Although he did spend Friday and now Sunday evenings sleeping from about 8:30 on.  And thus I sit here blogging...

Loving his daddy time.

But seriously, we took full advantage.  It was Halloween weekend, and the coolest thing to do in New England at Halloween is definitely to go to Salem.  You know, Salem... where they executed all those innocent people for being witches.  Par-tay!!  

But tragic human depravity aside, Salem is a really neat place to go in October.  The Witch Dungeon Museum is FASCINATING.  First you watch a reenactment of portions of the actual 1692 trial transcript of Elizabeth Proctor.  She was accused by an orphaned girl she and her husband had taken in as a servant and treated as their own.  She was found guilty but because she was pregnant, her execution was delayed until the hysteria was over.  Her husband was not so lucky; he was executed.  Largely for standing up for her - so sad.  Their graves, along with the graves of many of the other 20 convicted and executed "witches" can still be found in Salem.  I mean how weird is it to live down the highway from where that all went down?  BTW local cemeteries are awesome this time of year.  The first time I saw one I thought it was an elaborate Halloween display.

Cemetery at Harvard Square

Next, you tour the dungeon.  Although it's just a reconstruction of the original, it attempts to be historically accurate.  Back then, you had to actually pay for your own time in prison (don't tell the Republicans!).  The wealthy could afford their own cells, and the middle-class were in communal cells.  The poor were in "coffin cells" - cells that were about 2' x 2'.  Like a coffin except you had to stand up.  The entire time you were imprisoned.  #FateWorseThanDeath.

Anyway, so we spent a spooky, rainy afternoon in Salem.  When the rain started to freeze, we picked up a chicken pot pie from the acclaimed Ken's Kicken Chicken (Amazing!!) and headed home, stopping off at Wilson Farm for some of their hot spiced cider.  Back at home we ate our warm pot pie and cider and watched the snow coming down in huge, wet flakes.  Once M was in bed we sat down to watch Knocked Up, decided we hated it, and about fifteen crappy Netflix movies later we settled on The Spitfire Grill.  Fabulous Saturday.

This morning I got up early with M and cooked my husband an autumn breakfast feast while he slept in. If you at all like apples, give this one a try.  It's really quite easy SO good.  A great way to have "pancakes" and actually be able to sit down and eat together instead of running back and forth to the kitchen to flip new ones.

German Apple Pancake

4 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp sugar
3 pinches salt
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp butter
1/2 tsp nutmeg


1/2 stick butter
1/2 cup sugar 
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
2 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored, and sliced to about 1/4 inch thickness


In large bowl, stir or blend eggs, flour, baking powder, sugar, salt.  Slowly stir in milk.  Add vanilla, melted butter, and nutmeg.  Set aside for at least 20 minutes, hopefully 30.


Preheat oven to 425.  Melt the butter in a skillet or large pot or saucepan.  Add remaining ingredients.  Saute 3-5 minutes, until apples are slightly cooked and sitting in caramel.  Pour apple mixture into pie dish.  Pour pancake mixture on top.  Bake 15 minutes at 425 and another 10 minutes at 375.  

SO GOOD.  Perfect for a fall weekend breakfast.

I did serve this with Breakfast Potatoes.  SO unhealthy but SO GOOD:

Dice up 1 large-ish red potato.  I like it diced small.  Boil for 5 minutes.  Drain.  Start heating it in a small pot.  Add finely diced onion - about 1/6th of a whole onion for each red potato.  Add finely diced or pressed garlic - one clove per potato.  And 2 tbsp butter.  Heat and stir, sprinkle with paprika.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Add more butter or onion if necessary.  Cook until desired doneness - I like them slightly crisp on the outside but chewy on the inside.  SO good but *SO* bad.

Anyway, if you're still reading, wow, thanks!  This was one long and disjointed blog entry.  But my main purpose with this blog is to capture our lives, largely for my children.  And this weekend was one I don't soon want to forget.  We finished off Sunday by finally working together on some projects around the apartment (cleaning out the office).  It felt SO good.  Later in the afternoon we did a 3.8 mile walk to and from Wilson Farm for "apple cider donuts" (they're big out here), more hot spiced cider, and a haunted hay ride for M.  Dinner together.  Perfection.

Obsession Recipe: Banana Chocolate Chip (or blueberry) Muffins.

Five weeks ago I found a recipe that I have since made at least eight times.  Credit Erica Carlson (my husband's cousin's wife) and her super-cute, always uplifting blog for my new found euphoria. Or credit her mama, Mrs. Print.

The recipe is so simple, I have it memorized, and I can whip it up in a matter of minutes.  It calls for white flour but I've found that you can use half whole wheat flour and it still tastes great.  I've also found that Smart Balance sticks work better than butter - the sticks are a blend of oil and butter that make all my bready baked goods more moist and heart-healthier.  Here's the recipe:

4 regular sized or 3 very large overripe bananas, mashed
1 stick of Smart Balance
1 cup sugar (I use about half brown sugar, half white sugar)
2 cups flour (I use one cup white, one cup whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips (I prefer Ghiradelli mini Semi-Sweet baking chips)
About 18 muffin cups

Just mash the bananas with a fork until smooth, or put them in the mixer first.  Add the Smart Balance (or butter), softened.  Add remaining ingredients.  Fill muffin cups about 3/4 full, bake at 340 degrees 17-20 minutes until the top resists slightly to pressure.

Here they are, ready to bake:

Before baking.

The close-up.

Yup.  I've been living on these for over a month now.

Really, try these!!  So simple and SO amazing, the perfect easy thing to whip up on a weekend morning and serve with eggs or sausage (and coffee, of course).  Every so often you find a recipe that you just know will be a staple in your home forevermore - I promise you, this is one of them.

And get this:  As if this find wasn't enough joy to last a year, it yields one final bonus.  After our eighth or ninth batch, my husband declared he needed a break (gasp!) and wanted something healthier.  Well... turns out this very recipe does the trick!  I set out today to tweak it into a recipe using half whole wheat flour, 1/3 less sugar, and "superfood" blueberries instead of my darling dark chocolate chips.  The result?  Still TDF.  Just ask the baby; at 8 months old he devoured an entire muffin this morning.  Here's the visual, and the recipe:

The Healthy Version.

Baby loves these.

3/4 stick Smart Balance (or butter)
1/4 cup white, 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
2 large or 3 small overripe bananas

1/4-1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 cups flour (I did half whole wheat)
2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
3/4 cup blueberries

Mash bananas with fork until smooth.  Combine bananas, sugars, and butter in mixer.  Add cinnamon if desired.  Add salt, baking powder, and baking soda.  Add flour(s).  Add blueberries gently, unless they are very firm blueberries.  Bake at 340 for 17-20 minutes until done.  Muffins are done when the very edges are just starting to turn golden brown and the top resists slightly to touch.  Do not overcook.

Enjoy!

Oatmeal, Berries, & Heart-Healthy Love

Everyone knows that you're "supposed to" eat oatmeal to lower your cholesterol, but not everybody knows why.  Many believe, as I once did, that anything with fiber is great for heart health.  Well... sort of.  Obviously fiber has many health benefits.  But only soluble fiber has actually been shown to reduce cholesterol.

Sadly, soluble fiber is not easy to come by.  Only two cereals on the market are allowed to claim it on their nutrition info:  Oatmeal and Kashi.  As for veggies, you'll be stuck with okra, zucchini, and egg plant.  It's that "gooey"ness in all of these foods that does the trick.  Luckily, most beans are great sources... so if you're serious about heart health, bring on the chili, hummus, and delicious black bean burritos (I add a can of tomatoes and top with salsa and low-fat sour cream, and I use 2 chipotle chilis in adobo sauce instead of jalapeno).

But back to breakfast.  I've heard so many people say oatmeal is boring.  No!!!  It doesn't have to be!  Whether you do oatmeal or oat bran, or a mixture of the two (my personal fave), it's all about the toppings. 

Saturday night, our friend Kelly tipped us off that berrries were on sale.  So we did strawberry, blackberry, and blueberries.  So good, and packed with antioxidants.  Thus, the recipe generally is:

- Make oatmeal, oat bran, or Irish steel cut oatmeal as directed but add *milk* instead of water.  Do NOT use instant oatmeal (use "old fashioned" or Steel Cut).  You won't get the heart benefits.
- Add a tiny sliver of butter (or Smart Balance if you're us) and a sprinkling of sea salt in each bowl
- Top with fruit.  If you're only going to try this recipe once, please wait until August and use fresh ripe peaches.  The combination of peach and cardamom simply cannot be beat.
- Sprinkle with dark brown sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom.  The cardamom is very important!  Cardamom is a spice (so found in the spice aisle by the baking section).  It's used in a lot of Swedish baked goods... I discovered it by marrying a half-Swede.  It's great in coffee, just sprinkle some on... it's also used in Indian food; try it with yogurt, mango, and honey for a "mango lassi."  Add it to ANY smoothie for a greatly enhanced experience.

Mommy and baby sized oatmeal - baby sized in the front.  He ate half of that!

So, "oatmeal" is a pretty simple recipe but a great way to have a "special breakfast" that's still healthy.  Bonus:  You can dice up the fruit nice and small for a baby.  Ours was IN LOVE with this breakfast, dancing a little as he ate it and grunting intensely as he reached out for more.  And now he's had whole grains, fresh fruit, and cardamom in a meal shared with Mommy and Daddy.  What a great morning!

Foolproof Perfect French Crepes

This is a recipe I discovered during my year in Rennes, France.  Rennes is the capital of "La Bretagne" (Brittany), the region of France just south of Normandy.  Crepes and galettes (galetts are savory crepes usually filled with egg/cheese/meats/veggies/etc.) are considered a regional specialty.

Now there is, in fact, a trick to making awesome crepes that never fall apart.  But it's not what you're thinking.  It has nothing to do with any crazy wrist skills or even the type of pan you're using to make the crepe.  I actually discovered it in the U.S., by making my own crepes often, and then read about it in France.  The trick is just to let the batter sit for at least thirty minutes after you make it.  Yup, it sounds weird but during my middle and high school years I noticed that the first few crepes of any batch never really held up as well as the later ones.  Then in France I read the answer:  The batter has to sit so that the flour and eggs and all that can "coagulate."  It sounds really medical and a little bit gooey-gross, but it just means that the stuff has to sort of get itself together and stick.

This recipe is SO easy.  The hardest part is sifting the flour, but you could probably get away with just stirring it with a whisk.  (If you have the right sifter, sifting flour takes two seconds - I like the OXO one-handed flour sifter for $13).  Also, if you have time, you can let the eggs and milk get to room temp before you start the recipe.  This actually makes any recipe better, but isn't necessary.

Ingredients:

2 eggs
1 1/4 cups milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp superfine sugar (regular sugar also works fine)
Large pinch of salt
1 cup plus 2 tbsp sifted flour

All you do is place the eggs, milk, vanilla, and melted butter in a blender.  Add the sugar and salt, whiz until smooth.  Add the flour and whiz again, then set aside for thirty minutes.

Stir the batter again immediately before making the crepes (separation is normal; get it back to a unified texture).

Heat a nonstick pan to somewhere between low and medium heat.  Spray with PAM.  If you're feeling really decadent you can actually melt butter on the pan (sooooo good), but since we're trying to be heart-healthy we use PAM.   Once heated, pour about 1/3 cup of crepe batter on the pan.  Start tilting the pan until the batter runs over the entire surface.  It's okay to dip back into your batter for more; just use however much it takes to coat the pan.  It's also okay to have holes that you fill with a little extra batter.  It'll all work out in the end, because you let your batter coagulate ;)

My pan is specifically for crepes; it's very shallow and the surface is nonstick.  I got it in France but you could probably find it online, maybe Amazon.com.  The shallow edges do make it easier to slide the crepe off onto a plate, but really aren't necessary.

Eventually your crepe will start to bubble up and pull away from the nonstick surface.  Ideally you want it to get to the point where it just slips right off onto your plate, with a little help from a spatula to unstick any stuck parts.  But even if you have to turn the entire pan upside down, it's not a problem - just wait for the crepe to cool on the plate a little and then spread it back out for toppings.

Sometimes people ask me about cooking both sides.  I've never found that necessary.  Crepes are very thin and are they cook through quite easily.  Cooking both sides just isn't worth the hassle, in my book.  (I also tend to like a wetter, chewier crepe - sometimes when creperies in the U.S. cook both sides they just get dry and boring).

We've experimented a lot with toppings over the years.  To be heart-healthy, our favorite remains fresh strawberries, blueberries, and/or bananas with brown sugar and maybe a little whipped cream (well, a lot of whipped cream for me; a little for him).  But if you're on a chocolate fix (and really, who isn't?) you can place chocolate chips on the crepe while it's still cooking on the pan, and watch them melt before you slide the crepe off onto your plate.  Top that with whipped cream... and maybe some powdered sugar ... mmmm.

And of course there's nutella.  But here's a tip on that:  In France, only the street vendors sell crepes with nutella.  It's sort of more for the tourists and the children; you won't find it in the self-respecting creperies (at least not when I was there, in 2000).  Nutella came to be during WWII when chocolate was scare due to rations and children still needed a treat.  It's made from hazelnuts... it's sort of like the French version of peanut butter in that way, though for some reason Europeans really think peanut butter is disgusting.  Anyway, if you're at an authentic local creperie and you order any sort of crepe with chocolate, they don't use nutella.  Instead, they throw a spoon full of butter on your crepe and douse that in chocolate powder... and it is SO GOOD.  I've been able to replicate it at home with melted butter, cocoa powder, sugar, and salt to taste - just in the microwave.  It's amazing and goes well with on a crepe with just whipped cream or with any other type of fruit, too.

Anyway, if you've ever been interested in crepes, give this recipe a try!  It makes about 6 crepes and usually people want at least two apiece.  It can be a real crowd-pleaser with decadent toppings or, if you stick to mainly strawberries and a little sugar, it can be a pretty healthy, fairly light breakfast.