The Underachieving Renaissance Man: Oh Crepe, i thought it was Saturday already!

Aahh... It's Friday morning and you can already feel the mischievous pull of a lazy weekend tugging at your arm. It can get you high on life thinking about it: the morning cartoons; the Sunday paper being divided among your family; a rich, aromatic breakfast that doesn't involve a bowl, a spoon and less than five minutes. Alas, for most of us Friday can't be a day for fluffy whole wheat pancakes, challah french toast and slow-cooked steel-cut oatmeal with fresh local fruit. There is a saviour, however, amidst the teems of sugary breakfast cereals and bone dry nutrition bars and that savior is the simple crepe!

The Crepe is a masterful combination of the pancake with its deliciously spongy consistency and the fried egg with its light fluffiness and, most importantly, quick cooking time. So what's the deal with crepes? They usually have only a few simple ingredients you can mix in minutes (and even do so the night before if you must) and they are delicious as a stand alone dish for any carb addicts or as the setting for a host of sweet and savory toppings.

The Recipe

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 (cage-free) eggs

1/2 cup (organic, grass fed) milk

1/2 cup tap water

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 tablespoons of butter, margarine or oil in liquid form

As goes with most doughs (and you are making a form of dough) it is best to combine all the wet ingredients (eggs, milk, water, fat) in the bowl first and whisk together then slowly incorporate the flour to avoid clumping. Now what i usually do is separate the batter into two bowls and add about 1/3 of a cup of sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla to one batch. This sweet mixture will be for crepes that i eat with fillings like fruit, chocolate, cinnamon, or even some soft cheeses. In the unsweetened batter i will usually put a hard cheese or some finely diced veggies sauteed in oil and garlic.

Heat up a skillet and spray it with non-stick cooking spray and ladle on some batter making sure to keep the size of your crepe small enough that you will be comfortable flipping it halfway through. All that is left now is popping it into a plate and tossing a topping on and you have a delicious breakfast, lunch, dinner or dessert that didn't take too much time or effort.

The best part, though, is when you start experimenting with toppings. My favorites so far are:

melted dark chocolate - throw some chocolate chips (i like ghiradelli semi-sweet at least 60% cocoa) into a microwave-safe bowl and melt them. it helps the consistency if you add just a spoon of canola oil and take it out of the microwave to mix it every 30 seconds or so.

Cinnamon goop - This one came about when I had leftover cinnamon crumb topping from a cake i made so i threw it onto the crepe while it was still in the pan and it melted into delicious cinnamon jam. For this you need 1 cup sugar 1 cup cinnamon 1/2 cup flour and 3/4 cup butter then you combine the dry ingredients and throw in little pieces of butter at a time and smash it in with a fork til you have small crumbs of butter covered in the cinnamon mix. YUM

Savory veggies and cheese crepes - use the savory crepe mix to make your crepes. Then throw veggies like carrots broccoli snow peas string beans and anything else you like into a food processor for two seconds to get very fine pieces of your veggies. Put that in a separate pan with a few spoons of oil and clove of diced garlic or garlic powder and saute. Portion that mixture onto each crepe and sprinkle with finely shredded cheese (mozzarella, cheddar, monterey jack, they all work!) fold the crepe over like a half circle and serve. It's a delicious meal!

Well i hope that i haven't made you late for work with the whole explanation. I know when i first started cooking i preferred the long version because it taught me not only how to prepare this one dish but also how to reuse some techniques to make original dishes too. If you already think you're past the novice stage though I have a suggestion for a website that always inspires me to try something new. www.Tastespotting.com is great for recipe ideas but sometimes less so for explanations on how to make these things. Also if you're into eating sustainably, as I am, a good resource is Mark Bittman at the NY Times. He has a regular cooking video on NYTIMES.com if you want to check him out and he also just came out with a new book called "Food Matters" which is doing pretty well so I hope people are walking away from the table with a greater appreciation of the way the food we eat gets to our plates. Anyway, without further ado, some pictures to bedazzle the eye and excite the palate.