Special Day Crepes

This past weekend I made a special meal to honour Valentine's day and got reminded how wonderful crepes are.  They are so easy to make and remind me of winters in France or Switzerland.  Not that I've spent winters in France or Switzerland, although I have spent time in Quebec and in Moncton which has a great french vibe... and an awesome crepe restaurant Cafe Archibald! 

You can make a bit batch of crepes, freeze them and then pull them out to stuff whatever you feel like for a quick but elegant meal. 

Crepes
Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1/2 -3/4 cup water (add less first, you can always add more)
• 3 tbsp melted butter
• more butter for coating the pan

Instructions:

1. Blend it all in the blender! It makes it so easy, you can pour the batter right out from the blender into the pan.  The batter should be thinner than pancake batter.
2. Heat a non-stick pan over medium high heat.
3. Melt a little butter, about 1/4 tsp in the pan.
4. Pour enough to coat the bottom of the pan.  Don't worry, as Julia Child used to say 'when making crepes you throw the first one out' because that's your time to get the batter right and get used to handling the pan.
5. Swirl the pan to move the batter to completely cover the bottom of the pan.
6. If you need to add more water to the batter feel free. The batter should move pretty easily over the bottom of the pan before it cooks. 
7. Continue until you use all the batter, piling them up on a plate in the oven if you are going to use them right away to keep them warm or spread them out a bit on a cutting board if you are going to store them for later.

It might take a couple of tries but once you get your crepe making groove on it'll be easy peasy lemon squeezie!

Ready for the freezer for another meal later!  I only got 7 crepes out of this batch but usually I get 10 or more.  It depends on how big your pan is.  I used my largest pan and then remembered I usually use my smaller one.

I made a little sauce to pour over our filling.  It was soo good and sooo simple.  And there's leftovers of the sauce too.  I'm thinking spinach and shrimp crepes later.

Havarti Cheese Sauce
Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 tbsp butter
• 2 1/2 tbsp flour
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 1 1/2 cup shredded Havarti cheese, Gruyere or Emmenthal would work too
• 1/2 cup light cream
• 1 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp chopped chives (I have butter mixed with chives frozen in a log in my freezer, I just cut off a piece to finish off the sauce.  ps. the chives came from my garden!)

Instructions:

1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium high heat
2. Add the flour and whisk, heat until just starting to turn brown, about 30 seconds to 1 minute
3. Slowly pour in the wine then the chicken broth, whisking continually. 
4. Blend until heated and bubbly. 
5. Add the cheese a bit at a time, whisk until melted, continue until you've got all the cheese in.
6. Whisk and let bubble for a minute.
7. Add in the cream, butter and chives, whisk until blended and heated through. 

I served this with some ham and asparagus.  They were so decadent!