Tag Archives: Egg-free

Spinach Crepes Revisited

11 Aug

I love spinach crepes… they’re my favorite savory combination of crepes. 

I used to eat a spinach crepe every Saturday as lunch at the Alliance Française…  I had a spinach crepe too for lunch when we visited Versailles last year.   When given the choice, a spinach filling usually wins for me.

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Crepe epinard 1

When I did the Gateau des Crepes for the Fête de la Bastille celebration, the recipe yielded more spinach filling and more crepes than we actually need for the crepe stack.   And if it’s just me eating, the same components can be assembled differently in a more single dish friendly format.

 

SPINACH CREPES REVISITED

2 spelt crepes
About 2 tbs of spinach béchamel filling
2 tbs grated gruyere cheese
1 small handful of toasted walnuts, chopped

 

  1. Pre-heat toaster oven to 350F.
  2. If crepes have been refrigerated, we’ll need to reheat them slightly.  In a small non-stick skillet over medium heat, place crepe individually for a few minutes until they’re warm and pliable.
  3. Take each crepe and spread about 1 tbs of filling into each one.  Sprikle with half the walnuts into each crepe.  Roll crepe onto itself and place in a buttered dish.
  4. Spread some extra spinach filling over the crepes and sprinkle with a bit more walnuts.  Add the grated gruyere on top to finish.
  5. Place in oven for about 10-15 minutes until the filling heats up and the cheese on top melts well.

 

Two crepes is, to me, the perfect serving for one person.  You can drizzle a bit of honey or agave nectar on top if you’d like a different sweet touch to the crepe…  I highly recommend it.

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Cherry Almond Clafouti

20 Jul

Cherries are not a tropical fruit… but I remember when I was little my dad used to buy us cherries whenever we traveled to NYC.  It was such a treat to sit and eat those deliciously sweet cherries…

Now, thanks to Costco, I have a huge bundle of sweet cherries in my fridge.  I sit and eat a small bowl watching TV but I wanted to do something special with them too.  The other day, reading Serious Eats we discussed how to best freeze cherries – if one should pit them before or after freezing them.  So after that discussion, I knew I decided to eat them raw or make them into something while fresh…

Then, last week, also in Serious Eats, we were asked to provide our French inspired recipes.  And you know me and my fascination of anything French… and with the abundance of fresh cherries in my fridge, I decided to make Cherry Almond Clafouti.  A clafouti is a French dessert where you take a pancake-like batter and pour it over fresh fruits and bake in the oven.

I’ll be honest… I’ve never eaten a cherry or any other clafouti in my life, partly because clafouti recipes out there all include eggs.  What I know about clafouti I have learned by watching TV and reading cooking recipes.  Alton Brown made a recipe the other day using a dutch oven and coals; Ina Garten has a few other recipes too.  So I decided to take what I liked about some of these, add a few little twists of my own… and this is what I ended up with.

This recipe makes a medium cherry clafouti  or two small ones – enough for 2 people.  Romatic, no?

CHERRY ALMOND CLAFOUTI

About 10 fresh cherries, pitted
¼ cup sliced almonds, toasted –  but you could also use peeled whole almonds
1½ tbs butter
½ cup soy milk, plus 2 tbs
1/3 cup spelt flour, sifted
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 ½ tsp egg replacer
1 tsp vanilla powder
A pinch of salt
  1. Pre-heat toaster oven to 350F
  2. Pit the cherries and set them aside.  I pitted them by smashing them lightly with the side of a knife.  Be careful the juice of the cherries doesn’t fall on your clothes.  They “spit” a bit when you smash them.
  3. Toast your almonds by placing them in a small tray and baking them  for about 10 minutes.  As soon as they start to smell like almonds, take them off the oven.  Set them aside to cool off a bit.
  4. Butter the inside of your baking dish.  I used a large ramekin for this…  but you could also use 2 smaller ramekins to serve as individual desserts.
  5. Prepare the egg replacer by mixing the egg replacer powder with 2 tbs of soy milk.  Set aside.
  6. Place the milk in a medium bowl, add the sugar and whisk well until the sugar has dissolved in the milk.  Add the egg replacer mix.  Whisk again to incorporate.  Place the flour onto a fine sieve and sift over the milk mixture.  Whisk well.  Add the salt and vanilla powder and whisk the whole mixture for a few minutes until well combined and air is incorporated into it.
  7. Place the cherries in the baking dish.  They should cover the whole bottom of the dish.  Add a few almonds to the cherries.  Pour almost the whole batter in top of the cherries, the batter should only cover them slightly.
  8. Bake in oven for about 30-35 minutes.  At the 15 minute mark, take them out slightly, place a few extra almonds on top and add a few small pieces on butter on top to make it golden brown.
  9. The clafoutis should be puffy and golden delicious.  Leave to cool about 30 minutes before serving.

This recipe is delicious… but I would like to work on it a little bit to perfect it.  I will definitely let you know of the results of those tastings soon.  I still have lots of cherries in that fridge…

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Egg-free Spelt Crepes

15 Jul

For a long time, I’ve been meaning to share with you a recipe for egg-free crepes…

All the recipes you see out there include eggs and I decided to modify my favorite recipe to get the same results.

EGG-FREE SPELT CREPES – recipe makes about 20 small crepes

1 ½ cups of organic spelt flour, sifted
½ tsp kosher salt
2 cups soy milk, plus 6 tbs
4 ½ tsp egg replacer mix
 5 tbs butter
1 tbs Olive oil, for skillet
¼ cup water, if needed
  1. In a small sauce pan over low heat, melt the butter.  Set aside.
  2. In a small bowl, mix together the egg replacer mix with 6tbs of soymilk.  Whisk together and set aside.
  3. In a large bowl, sift flour and salt using a fine sieve.  Set aside.  It’s important to sift using a fine sieve, because organic spelt flour has little flakes that we should not include if we want a smooth crepe batter.
  4. Pour remaining soy milk into a blender.  Add the melted butter, egg replacer mix and flour.  Blend well for a few minutes.  Place the crepe batter in the same blender cup in the fridge to rest for at least 2 hours.  I made the batter in the morning to use later in the afternoon.
  1. When you’re ready to use the batter…  move it around and see if it has the consistency of a light pancake batter.  If it’s too thick, add ¼ cup of water to make it thinner.
  2. Heat a small non-stick skillet over medium heat.  Add 1 tbs olive oil and spread out using a paper towel.
  3. Pour one ladleful of batter into skillet into skillet, turning and tilting skillet as you’re pouring the batter.  The idea is to coat the bottom of the skillet with a thin layer of batter.  Don’t be discouraged if the first few ones are not as you expect.  It took me a few tried to get the right rhythm of ladle and skillet.
  4. Loose the edges of the crepe using an off-set spatula.  You’ll see the crepe bubble a little, very similar to pancakes.  Loosen the crepe delicately from the pan using a silicone spatula.  When you can move the crepe loosely by just shaking the skillet, after about 1 minute of cooking, flip the crepe using the silicone spatula.
  6. Cook on the other side for about 30 more seconds.  Just slide the crepe out of the skillet onto a plate lined with wax paper.
  8. Repeat the process all over until you finish the crepe batter.  Pass the oiled paper towel once in awhile in between crepes, as needed.

Serve immediately or store in an air-tight container for about 2 weeks.  The crepes have so much butter, they will not stick.

If you do store any in the fridge, just heat the up in a warm skillet for about 1 minute to make them soft and pliable again.  I used these crepes to make my Gateau de Crepes.  They’re also delicious to eat as a dessert with a filling of cajeta/dulce de leche or fruit jam.

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Spelt Churros

12 Jul

My friend Angie’s mom, Doña Tina, is from Asturias.  They were just visiting Asturias this past Easter.  Angie came back with plenty ideas for us to make together.  Among them, a CHURRERA…  or a little machine contraption to make churros.  We just had to try it for our Spanish-inspired dinner menu recently.

Mariana and Natalia were super excited to make churros… they were asking for them the whole night.  Churros are sweet, crunchy and delicious.  What’s not to like??

The recipe is super simple… just 3 ingredients – flour, water and butter.  That’s it; Nothing to it.  All you need is a little bit of muscle to work the Churrera.  Or a second pair of hands is also very useful.  If you do not have a churrera, don’t worry – a simple pastry bag with a star tip will also do the job.

We used spelt flour for the job… and it worked out extremely well. 

 

SPELT CHURROS

1 cup  spelt flour
1 cup  water
2 tbs butter
a pinch of kosher salt
Canola oil for frying
Organic sugar for sprinkling on top

 

  1. In a medium saucepan bring the water and butter to a boil.  Dump the flour into the water in one swoop and start mixing it all together very briskly using a wooden spoon.
  3. After mixing the dough around the pan for a little while, about 1-2 minutes, take the dough out of the pan to cool off.
  4. After the dough has cooled, insert it into a churrera or pastry bag with a star tip.
  6. In a large skillet, place about ½ inch of oil for frying the churros… traditionally olive oil is used, but I do not like to use olive oil for frying.  Check the oil is at the right frying temperature by inserting a wooden spoon into the oil.
  7. Press the churros dough through the currera and into the hot oil.  Try to use a circular motion going from the center of the pan and spiral outward.  When you run out of space in the pan, cut the dough using kitchen shears.  That’s the traditional way the Spanish do churros.  If this is too complex, just draw some lines into the frying pan and cut the dough again using kitchen shears.
  9. Fry churros for about 10-15 minutes, until the dough is golden brown on all sides.  Spelt flour is a little bit darker than traditional white flour, so it’ll take a few minutes of frying before you start seeing the change in color and doneness.
  10. Take the finished churros out of the oil and place in a paper towel to drain.  Sprinkle with organic sugar on top.

 

These churros are spectacular and even more so with a cup of Hot Carob on the side.

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Very Berry Sorbet

23 Jun

This week summer started officially, according to the calendar, because in Puerto Rico summer started since April, during Holy Week/Easter.  We have been feeling the heat for weeks…

To celebrate the “official” start of summer, our friends at Serious Eats encouraged us to share with them our favorite frozen treats in a feature Ice Cream Social.  I am a social person… and I have been meaning to make a berry sorbet for the longest time, so what better excuse than to share it with all my Serious Eats friends.

The cool thing… it only has 4 ingredients if you count the water and you only need a food processor and a freezer to make this sorbet.  I do not have an ice cream maker because my kitchen is so small I do not have the space for another gadget, so just like Alton Brown we need to multitask.  And nothing beats this in the natural and refreshing department – it only has berries and agave nectar…  Take that Häagen Dazs!!!!

 

VERY BERRY SORBET

8 frozen strawberries
24 frozen blackberries
¼ cup of water
1/3 cup of agave nectar
 

 

  1. Dissolve the agave nectar into the water.
  2. Place the frozen berries in a food processor.  I cut the strawberries in quarters to make them more even in size with the blackberries.

  1. Pulse your food processor a few times to start mashing the berries.  After a few pulses, let it process normally and pour the water and agave nectar mixture through the chute on the top.  You’ll see how the berries will turn into a slushy.
  3. If you’re not fond of sorbet with seeds, pass the mixture thru a sieve to remove as much of the seeds as possible.  If you don’t mind them, skip this step.
  4. Place in an airtight container and freeze for about 2-3 hours before serving. 

 

This recipe made about 2 cups of sorbet and it is super easy and super refreshing…  I use frozen berries I buy fresh and freeze them myself.  It’s super convenient to make smoothies at home and certainly to make this frozen treat.

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