Oat Crepes

I stole the idea of Oat crêpes from Well Fed, Flat Broke, but the execution is fully mine. You see, Emily's recipe calls for 1/4 c butter and FOUR EGGS. I don't have any eggs right now, and that's a lot of cornstarch eggs to be dealing with. So I took my usual recipe of flour, 1 egg, some milk, and a buncha salt and adapted it to oats.
Unfortunately, oats absorb a lot more water than flour, so I ended up needing tons of milk after I started making them. I've adapted the recipe slightly, but please adapt it further to your needs.

Ingredients

1 c quick oats
1 1/2 c milk (at least)
1 tbsp cornstarch/1 egg
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt (at least)

Procedure

Put your dry ingredients in the blender. I put my cornstarch in, but you don't have to if you've already mixed up your "egg".

My blender is from the 70's, I think. Possibly the 50's. I got it at a yard sale.

 Blender that up. Shoving the oats gently down towards the blade with a spatula will keep things going.

Once the oats are all smooth, add your wet ingredients: milk, oil, egg/"egg".

Blender that up as well. Remember that the oats will absorb a lot of the milk, so don't add more oats until after it's sat in the fridge for at least half an hour. You WANT it to be really soupy.

Let sit in the fridge for half an hour or so. Then give it another go on the blender and add milk or oats as needed. Go small on the oats, though.
Then grease a pan and heat it on medium until it's pretty hot. Otherwise, your first crepe will be a pale, oily thing.
Pour about 1/4 c of batter into a small skillet and tilt gently in a swirl to get batter in a nice, thin circle. This should not be stressful.

Ignore the crepe until the edges pull up from the pan (or turn golden brown if they're too thick to pull away) and the surface is mostly cooked through. Flip gently.
Very gently, with oat crepes. They're a bit floppier than flour crepes, and take a while longer to cook, so don't rush things like I did.

Below is what a nice crepe looks like. Your pan is all warmed up and heating evenly, and you've destroyed enough crepes to be patient.

The second side to cook will always be spotty and paler than the first's nice, golden brown. Don't let this bother you. These are not like american pancakes. If it really, really bothers you, get a crepe maker or something.

Fill or top your crepe with whatever you want: peanut butter, jam, whipped cream, nutella, greek yogurt, fresh fruit, all of the above, whatever. All are good. Combinations are great. I'll do cream cheese and jam sometimes, peanut butter and jam, greek yogurt and jam, etc. I guess you could use butter, but crepes are thin and a little greasy, so they don't really need it.
I always put the goodies on the inside and fold the crepe into thirds around the filling, but some do a tight roll, some do halves, and some fold the crepe into thirds and put the goodies on the outside. Whatever strikes your fancy.

Fancy fancy crepe with greek yogurt and fresh raspberries from the community garden down the road.

I make crepes almost every Tuesday, usually in the evening, but that's because I love them so much. It's a very relaxing thing for me to do, especially since I usually have a lot due on Wednesday. It's a study break, a time to focus on nothing except the gentle swirl of the batter in the pan and the sizzle of cooking crepe. It's an exercise in patience, which I desperately need during heavy study times.
Also, be warned that this will make far too many crepes to eat by yourself (as will most recipes that claim to make 8. I think they want you to use a big pan or something). Invite your friends to share, or eat them for most of your meals for the rest of the week.

Fun Things To Do With Cream Cheese

Happy belated fourth of July! To my American readers, at least. And I hope that all of the days since I last posted have been happy, if not necessarily festive, for the rest of you.
Since the last time I posted, I've made several drafts of posts, had family over, baked a red velvet cake for A's birthday party, decorated said cake while preparing food for said party, and had more people over for a barbeque on the fourth of july (for which I made a dessert). 

I'm terribly sorry that I didn't take any pictures of the red velvet cake we made while we were making it. You'll just have to trust that your instructions have you do the right sorts of things, like we did. "We" here refers to me and my lovely, adventurous housemate S, who is especially lovely for reading my blog somewhat faithfully and thinking it's good.
We used "Savannah's Perfectly Ravishing Red Velvet Cake" recipe from allrecipes.com. In retrospect, I should've checked the flour requirements, because this recipe makes a very dense cake. Not that this is a bad thing, it's just that we weren't really expecting it, and also our cake was very, very dense and rich.
The main thing was that we were making it in a two-piece form shaped like a cupcake. One part was the bottom, with crinkles for the wrapper, and the other part was the top, with a swirl for the frosting. It was cool, but mostly just a thing we wanted to try.
It ended up looking pretty. We frosted it with cream cheese frosting based on "Cream Cheese Frosting II" (again from allrecipes.com), but ended up adding the whole 2 lb bag of powdered sugar because it's too hot for really soft, creamy frosting. We're also bad at guessing how much frosting will cover a given area of cake. Hint: less than we made.
Here's a picture. Like the rest of the party except the gritty fondue that still tasted pretty good, everything just kind of fell into place.

The sprinkles are huge ones that we found in a cupboard and were perfect.

I failed at leveling the two pieces, so there was a gap about an inch high all around where they didn't meet. I filled it with frosting. The bottom layer of sprinkles is on that section. Still, no one complains about too much frosting. 

That's a lie. I do that all the time. But not about cream cheese frosting.

 Cream cheese count: 16 oz, or two packages.

At the birthday girl's house the next day, we played games with water balloons, went swimming, made s'mores, and ate tons of food. Including a cheesecake. 

Cream cheese count: At least 8 oz --> 24 oz for the week so far.

The day after the second party, I realized that if I wanted to recreate a childhood fourth of july dessert, I'd better get going, as the fourth was about two days away. 

I knew it had a crunchy crust, a raspberry filling, and a creamy topping with crunchy bits on top. It was a thin, flat bar sort of dessert. The problem is that the only recipes I could find had the raspberry on top. So, I improvised. 

I present to you my somewhat final draft of the recipe, at least until I make it again next year and change it. 

Fourth of July Raspberry Bars

Ingredients

Pretzel crust

• 2 1/2 c crushed pretzels
• 3/4 c melted butter
• 3 tbsp brown sugar

Raspberry filling

• 24 oz frozen raspberries
• 1/3 c sugar
• 2 packets unflavored gelatin

Creamy topping

• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 c sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 c whipped topping

Crunchy bits

• 1/4 c chopped walnuts
• 1 tbsp brown sugar

Preparation

Pretzel crust

I used a big, heavy mug with a flat bottom in lieu of a hammer or mallet. Be aware that your bag will get lots of small punctures from the pretzels.

• Crush pretzels. You don't really want them bigger than your pinky nail.
• Melt butter and sugar in a large bowl in the microwave

• Stir in pretzels until coated with butter and sugar

 

• Press pretzels into a 9x13 pan
• Bake 10 min at 350 F
• Cool completely before using

Crunchy bits, part 1

• Mix sugar and walnuts 
• Give the sugar enough time to kind of stick to the walnuts; they should be ready by the time the creamy topping is set

Raspberry filling

• When crust is cool, put raspberries in a saucepan

• Sprinkle with sugar while heating

 

• Mush raspberries as much as possible

• When raspberry mush is bubbling, add two packets gelatin and stir well until dissolved
• Remove from heat and let cool until raspberries are almost firm. Don't be impatient here.

 

• Spread over crust and refrigerate for about 8 hours

Creamy topping

• After the raspberry mush has had 8 hours to set, beat cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla until fluffy

• Add cool whip; beat until fluffy again

• Spread over raspberry filling
• Return to fridge until it's time to serve

Crunchy buts, part 2

• Distribute walnuts over the creamy topping evenly
• Press in gently

Remember: Let the gelatin set! Crush the pretzels small! Use lots of cream cheese!

Cream cheese count: 8 oz --> 32 oz for the whole weekend.