CREPES SWEET OR SAVORY
DAILY POST JULY 20th:Â BARGING THROUGH THE WORLD
RELATED PREPARATION:Â CREPES
You can fill a crepe with just about anything, sweet or savory.  Crepes can be an elegant presentation of an otherwise ordinary dinner of familiar foods. Economical, using things already in your kitchen pantry and refrigerator, crepes can stretch your food dollars. Using leftovers are a good way to get comfortable with crepes, focusing on the crepe construction and raiding the fridge for whatever you have on hand to fill them. Break the routine by filling crepes and watch you family’s eyes pop in amazement.
Whatever you like in an omelet you’ll probably like inside a crepe. Variations abound, limited only by your imagination:
- Sauté any vegetable, beginning with an onion or shallots. Add a little garlic or garlic scape, sweet bell pepper and whatever alphabet mix you’ve brought home from the green market: asparagus, broccoli, carrot, green beans, mushroom, snow pea pods, spinach, summer squash.
- Don’t forget herbs and spices; experiment with different combinations:
- Fresh chopped basil, arugula or cilantro, or dried thyme, marjoram, tarragon or savory.
- Chopped chili pepper (without the seeds or pepper membrane) for a spicy flavor, and cool down with plain yogurt.
- Add tumeric and cumin for an Indian flavor. Ditto on the yogurt.
- Some foods lend themselves to topping with a little sauce, as the spirit moves:
- Aasparagus, broccoli and green beans are good with a little Hollandaise Sauce.
- Cheese Sauce can be used with cauliflower, broccoli or spicy black beans.
- Marinara Sauce can also be used with sautéd vegetables, especially eggplant.
- Using Sausage in Marinara as a jumping off point, heat sausage in marinara, put into the crepe and spoon marinara on top.
- A good way to glorify leftovers is to put them into a crepe. Just about any sort of leftover chicken makes a comfortable dinner inside a crepe, with or without leftover gravy or wine sauce.
- Leftover steak (from that huge restaurant portion you brought home) is spectacular wrapped in a crepe.
- Ham is  fabulous with a little Dijon mustard mixed in.
- Leftover chicken or brisket, added to a White Cream Sauce and combined in a crepe, creates an interesting variation on the military standby, SoS.
- You can also add cheeses, but only if you promise not to get carried away with the quantity. Grate a good quality cheese from the cheese shop, or use a soft one like goat or feta for a more mild flavor. Scatter cheese inside or on top. In crepes, like most dishes, a little cheese goes a long way
- Tuck in a few toasted pine nuts, slivered almonds or sunflower seeds for a crunch of texture, in crepes savory or sweet.
- Dessert crepes can easily be made by adding sweet foods.
- Spread a sweet gorgonzola cheese or applesauce on hot crepes and fold. Dust with confectioner’s sugar or 100% cocoa.
- Combine fresh fruit like blueberries with plain, full fat yogurt. Put inside
- Serve with fruit, as in Chocolate Bananas. Put a little fruit inside, fold over and top with the fruit and chocolate.
- Heated fruit in a light syrup makes a superb dessert crepe. Dip the finished crepe in the syrup and fold the finished crepe in quarters to get a wedge shape, place three on a plate like a fan, spooning the fruit on top. Crepes especially lend themselves to flambé desserts, making them doubly deserving for dinner guests. A few discussed before:
