A favorite dinner of mine is crepes, and when I received a crepe maker a few years back for my birthday, I was also given a crepe cookbook that Jeff and I have been using ever since. The Chicken Broccoli Crepes from the book have been quite successful.

For the batter, follow this recipe:

2 eggs
2 tbsp melted butter (or vegetable oil)
1 1/3 cup milk
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt

Use a food processor or a blender to mix all of your ingredients.

For the filling, here’s your recipe:

3 tbsp butter
1 shallot
2 garlic cloves
3 tbsp flour
2 cups milk
2 cups cooked chicken
red pepper flakes
2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
broccoli (steamed or raw)
salt/pepper
Parm cheese

To begin, have someone making the crepes while someone else makes the filling. Usually, Jeff makes the crepes, while I make the filling (below.)

Start with your chicken. Cube and season, then cook (I used my cast iron.)

Mince your shallot.

Mince your garlic.

Melt your butter, and then add your shallot and your garlic, and let simmer.

Then add your flour in…

Then add your milk, and stir well to create a roux-like substance.

Then add your cheese and your Worcestershire sauce. Delicious. You’re going to let it thicken, and when it does, reserve about 1/2 cup of sauce.

By now, your chicken should be done, so you can take that off of the cast iron and onto a plate (or just off of the heat!)

You can also cut your broccoli and steam it (or have it raw if you’d like!)

After you let your sauce thicken, add in the chicken. 😉

Take a scoop of filling and add it to a crepe.

Add your broccoli.

Lay them seam side down in a baking dish. Heat in 375 degree oven for about 20 minutes.

When it’s done baking, add more sauce to the top.

Then add some parmesan cheese.

Serve with some broccoli. This makes a great dinner, and even a few days of leftovers!

In honor of Celiac Awareness Month, I wanted to bring you a few choice insights from around the web this week that have made education about celiac a breeze! First of all, check out this video from T.R. from No One Likes Crumbley Cookies.

Next up, here’s an article that’ll give you the download on why celiac is a problem, and just how many Americans have celiac (nearly 18 million.) I may have featured her before, but here is another of my favorite gluten free bloggers. All Elana’s recipes look (and are) delicious, and she’s been gluten free since 2001 – so she knows how to do it, and how to do it right. Do you have a child that’s gluten free? Or just someone looking for more options? Check out Celiac Central for great options including gluten free foods you might not have known about, how to get your questions answered, and how to empower kids who are GF. If you live in LA, or even if you don’t, I’ve found another gf blogger that keeps us update to date on gf living in an urban environment. What have you learned about this month that’s gluten free, or related to celiac? I’d love to hear what you’ve found! Meanwhile, I’m dreaming about the ultimate GF dinner: spaghetti squash with pesto…

Sometimes on a week night, you just want to make a recipe that you know is delicious, quick, and will produce some leftovers. Am I right?

For me, that recipe was Barefoot Contessa’s Lemon Fuisilli with Arugula. The recipe on the Food Network calls for broccoli, but her cookbook does not. I agree with her cookbook.

So you zest your lemon, shown here. Also, juice your lemon, and put some water on to boil, for your pasta.

And you halve some cherry tomatoes.

And you rinse some arugula. I used quite a bit, in case you can’t tell.

Here is some cream. Delicious, beautiful heavy cream.

Start with garlic and olive oil. Italian Gold. (By the way, have you seen that video?)

Add in your cream, and your lemon zest. And the lemon juice you’ve squeezed.

Let your sauce thicken. It should take about ten minutes. Meanwhile, drain your al denta pasta.

Add your pasta to the sauce.

Mix in your pasta to your sauce…taste one, to make sure it’s not poison, or anything.

Now, transfer the pasta to a boil, and add your arugula and your tomatoes.

Serve to your favorite friends, in generous portions. They will thank you, and ask to take seconds home, and if you’re that nice, you’re let them. And hope they invite you over soon and make this very dish for you!

For our team recipe, we chose a coffee crusted steak recipe from Kevin & Amanda that won us over with it’s charm and simplicity. We love coffee. We love steak. What could go wrong?

Corelyn’s Steak

Truthfully, this was not my best steak endeavor. There are not that many steps to this recipe. You rub your steak with coffee grinds, and then you grill it. Pretty simple. But coffee is an odd flavor to have on your steak, and it IS possible to have too much. I blame my overly zealous application of coffee grounds for this recipe’s lackluster quality.

See what I mean? I that is a coffee coating, not a coffee crust.

Having said all that, this was still a completely enjoyable meal. Two out of two (mine and Meg’s) clean plates agree that this steak was certainly delicious enough to eat in its entirety. The coffee grounds, though a bit gritty (again, because I over-coffee-ed), gave a sort of faux-smokey flavor, and I can imagine a smaller helping of coffee grinds making a truly delicious addition to any steak.

Jennie’s steak

After Corelyn telling me she over-coffeed, I decided to be a little less zealous (although I do think I still added too much.)

Here are my steaks. Don’t they look divine?

So I salted and peppered each side, then put this one in, coffee down, and added coffee to the top.

After a few minutes, I flipped the steak to let the other side brown.

Here is the coffee close up, in butter and oil.

I served it with roasted potatoes and Brussels sprouts.

Overall, I agreed with Corelyn that it’s a little gritty, but I think this could be a dish to be perfected. The coffee I used was not flavored, as they suggested, and was pretty dark, and yet still added sweetness to the savory steak. I’ll want to try this again with a little less coffee, and will let it really cook without flipping it so it gets crispy.

Note: I used regular coffee, but you can use decaffeinated if you will otherwise be up all night!

Hello Folks,

Spring is almost a memory and summer is quickly approaching!

I love the summer, it seems to incorporate so many wonderful things. Warm air, the ability to wear shorts almost all the time, and of course great summer cocktails, that simply demand to be made on one of those forthcoming hot afternoons. With that lovely thought in mind, I wanted to share a few recipes that I really enjoy and most importantly are simple to make.

Moscow Mule:

This drink is a new discovery of mine from this past year. I had it for the first time when we were visiting Mary’s cousins down in Orange County. A local bar was serving pitchers of it and marketing it as a refreshing drink that didn’t hit you too hard. I fell in love with it. If you try the recipe and like it, you should go ahead and get yourself a set of copper mugs. For traditions sake it adds an additional charm to this wonderfully refreshing drink. But if you don’t have a set, a standard sturdy glass will do!

Prep Time: 2 Minutes

Yields: Drink for 1 Person

Ingredients:

6 Ounces of Ginger Beer
3 Ounces of Vodka (2 Shots)
1 Lime
4 Ice Cubes

Directions:

Grab a sturdy glass. Go ahead and fill it to the top with ice cubes. Pour in your vodka over the ice. Then take your fresh lime and cut it in quarters. Take the first 3 wedges and squeeze a ½ ounce of juice into the glass. Be sure no seeds fall in! Hang on to the 4^th wedge you will use it later for a garnish in the glass. Next step you want to go ahead and grab your Ginger Beer. Fill the glass up until the ice is fully submerged, roughly 6 ounces of liquid. To finish it off go ahead and give the drink a quick stir, drop the lime wedge on top and enjoy!

Blueberry Vodka Martini:

I started making this drink for Mary about 2 years ago. Why, you might ask? Well, she enjoys sweet drinks, we both love using fresh ingredients, and about this time 2 years ago we went blueberry picking and we had so many extra blueberries, so I had to figure out what to do with them. When researching options, I found that you can make syrups from fresh fruit. It’s really simple and it adds a little extra sweetness to a standard vodka martini. Fellas the lady in your house will love it!

Prep Time: 5 Minutes

Yields: Drink for 1 Person

Ingredients:

1 ½ Ounces of Vodka (1 Shot)
1 Tablespoon – White Sugar
¼ Cup of Water
15 Fresh Blueberries
½ Cup of Lemonade
4 Ice Cubes

Directions:

First thing you have to do here is prep the blueberry syrup. This is really easy to do, go ahead and grab a small soup pot. Fill it with about a ½ cup of water and a tablespoon of white sugar. Next thing you want to do is grab about 10 blueberries and literally crush them in your hands over the pot until the juices drop into the sugar and water. Then go ahead and drop the skins in as well. This will give the syrup the color you want in the final drink. Bring the pot to a boil stirring constantly. You will know you are done when all the sugar has broken down. Next you want to grab a martini shaker, fill it with 4 cubes of ice, the vodka, and the lemonade. Give it a quick shake, serve in a martini glass and throw in the additional five blueberries as a garnish. Enjoy the splash of vodka when you start to sip and the sweet blueberry taste as it goes down. Remember if blueberries aren’t your thing you can use other fresh fruits to make syrups as well. Just follow the same instructions.

Mojito:

This is one of my favorite summertime drinks. It’s always a hit, so refreshing, so cooling, and of course it tastes wonderful with its lovely sweetness. You can serve it with many flavors, but I am a big fan of the classic way. Lots of people think that it takes a great deal of effort to make a mojito but it really doesn’t. Often called the National Drink of Cuba it really hits the spot on a hot day or humid evening!

Prep Time: 2 Minutes

Yields: Drink for 1 Person

Ingredients:

10 Fresh Mint Leaves
1 Lime
2 Tablespoons of White Sugar
4 Ice Cubes
1 ½ Ounce of White Rum (1 Shot)
½ Cup Club Soda

Directions:

First thing you want to do is cut your fresh lime into quarters. Grab a sturdy glass and drop 1 of the wedges in. Next step is to throw in your fresh mint leaves. Then grab a muddler, if you don’t have one a wooden spoon with a blunt end will do just fine, and muddle the mint and the lime together. This releases the juice and the mint and you will immediately be able to tell. Next thing you want to do is throw in 2 more of your lime wedges and drop in the white sugar. Go ahead and muddle the new entries of the glass for a few moments until more of the juices release. Then you want to throw in your rum and fill the rest of the glass with your club soda. Do not use tonic water! After you have everything together give it a quick stir and throw in your last lime wedge as a garnish. Enjoy!

These are all wonderful drinks, but remember, due to their sweetness you may not think they are having much of an effect on you, but like all drinks they are, so make sure you drink responsibly.

Good Spirits Folks!