Oh Crepe! My Husband is About to Gain 10 Pounds

Ah, crepes. Those little thin pancakes that you only have at Sunday brunch. They're so cute, so delicious, so easy to make.

Seriously easy. Like turning on the radio and finding a Lady Gaga song, easy.

In my quest to be more creative in the kitchen and less attached to recipes, I decided to make crepes with some ricotta cheese I had in the fridge and the frozen strawberries hiding in my freezer.

Of course, I had to look up a recipe for crepes, because let's face it, it would have been a disaster. Turns out I had all the ingredients on hand, and you probably do too: Eggs, milk, flour, butter and salt.

Mix ingredients, pour in pan, flip and done. No seriously, it's that easy.

After my third crepe, I was a pro. They were coming out beautiful, with nice golden edges. I nuked my frozen strawberries for 30 seconds and then simmered them in a sauce pan with about two tablespoons of sugar - Just enough to get them thick and syrupy. I didn't know what to do with the ricotta cheese so I just heated it up until it was warm.

I laid out a crepe and filled it will a layer of cheese and a layer of strawberries. They were delicious! Okay, the cheese was lacking something, but I'll work on fillings later. Right now, I'm just excited that I can make crepes. I'm going to have a big crepe party and invite all my friends! Okay, maybe not. But I am going to make plenty of crepes for my husband as I work on different fillings. Sorry Rob, get ready to loosen that belt buckle.

If you want to try out crepes for yourself, here's the recipe I used from The Martha Stewart Living Cookbook:


1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
Pinch of kosher salt (if you don't have kosher, just use regular)
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cups milk
1 tsp pure vanilla extract (if you don't have any vanilla, you can probably skip it)
4 tbs butter

Mix flour and salt in a bowl. Add eggs and 1 tbs of the milk and whisk together until it forms a smooth, pastelike batter, probably a minute or so. Add remaining milk and vanilla and mix well so there are no lumps.

Heat a large nontstick skillet over medium-low and melt butter in pan. Add melted butter to egg mixture, leaving a film of butter on the skillet for cooking the crepes.

Now, Martha said you should let the batter rest at room temperature for 30 minutes. I let mine sit for only 10 as I worked on the strawberries and cheese, and it was fine.

Heat your butter-covered skillet to medium-low. When the pan is hot add a 1/4 cup of batter

and tip and rotate the skillet so the batter coats the entire bottom. It's like getting oil to cover the bottom of a pan. After a few seconds you'll see the batter start to firm up. Place the pan back on the heat and cook for about two minutes until the edges of the crepe start to brown.

After about two minutes, you'll be able to take a spatula and loosen the crepe from the pan. When you're ready to flip, just do it. It's pretty well cooked, and it's not heavy like eggs, so it's pretty easy. If it accidentally bends under, just straighten it out. Let it cook for another 30 seconds and your done. This probably makes about 6 crepes.

On my first crepe, I didn't have enough batter in the pan and I didn't let it cook long enough. But by crepe number three, I had it down. I'm sure you will too.