Author Archives: Jenna

Bananas Foster Crêpes

 

I spent Memorial Day weekend in Virginia with my Paris girls, Sarah and Vessie. We met while studying abroad in Paris, and . . . well, we just love each other. More on that in another post. We went to a little café where they served crêpes . . . but opted for the chocolate fondue instead. It was the right thing to do at the time. However, this engendered a longing in my heart for some amazing crêpes. So the next morning, we made ‘em for breakfast! We used a simple batter recipe that you can make in the blender (from tastykitchen.com), and did a little imitation of bananas foster with some liqueur modifications. Sarah even lit the pan on fire. We folded the bananas inside the crêpes, and topped it all with whipped cream and sugared pecans. Oh my!!!!! Definitely eat these with coffee to cut the sweetness—but they are spectacular! Plus, I learned how to flip a crêpe, which I can tell is going to be one of the major achievements of my life. I’m sure those skills will come in handy in the heavenly realms as well.

CRÊPE BATTER

4 eggs

1 cup flour

½ cup milk

½ cups water

½ teaspoons salt

2 TBS sugar

2 TBS melted butter

Toss ingredients in a blender or bowl. Blend for around 30 seconds, or hand mix for a minute or two (that’s what we did after discovering the blender was broken). Let the batter sit for a while on the counter (covered)—ideally an hour, but we were impatient and only waited 20 minutes.

Now I always mess up the first crêpe, so please don’t be discouraged if that happens to you.

Messing up the first crêpe

It’s important to get the heat just right, and that might mean one sacrificial lamb/crêpe. But don’t worry! Let’s forge ahead.

Get out a medium sized non-stick skillet (or a crêpe pan if you’re too cool for school) with a flat bottom.  If your pan is warped at all, it’s really going to mess up your game. Start the heat on medium to medium high, and melt some butter in the bottom as if you were making pancakes. You want a thin coating of butter all over the pan. Now it’s time to pour in the batter. I think I used somewhat less than ¼ cup batter for each crêpe, but depending on the size of your pan that could vary—the idea is to coat the bottom of the pan with the thinnest layer possible of batter. So as soon as you pour some batter in, immediately tilt the pan back and forth so that the batter runs all about. Then, let it sit. After a few minutes, I try to put my spatula under a side and lift the whole little pancake up—if you can do this, you can flip it at this point. Don’t be jealous of Sarah’s skills:

Master crêpe flipper!

She’s airborne, folks!

You want a few brown spots on each side of the crêpe (in my opinion), and I flipped each one back and forth a couple times to get it where I wanted it (probably breaking 15 French cooking rules while I was at it). Does this sound complicated? If so, please just think of it as making pancakes. It’s exactly the same thing! Except these are really thin. And French.

SPECIAL FOSTER-ESQUE BANANA FILLING

¼ cup (½ stick) butter

1 cup brown sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¼ cup Grand Marnier (orange flavored liqueur)

4 bananas (cut lengthwise and then in half)

¼ cup rum

Whipped cream

Sugared pecans

Combine butter, sugar, and cinnamon in a non-stick skillet. Stir over low heat until it’s all melty and bubbly. Add the Grand Marnier (or get creative and switch up the liqueur flavor!) and stir; immediately, add the bananas flat side down. Cook over low heat until the bananas start to get a little soft.

Getting bubbly

Then, add the rum. If you’re brave like Sarah, ignite the rum … if not, let the alcohol burn off for a few minutes.

Lighting up

And the flames leap higher . . .

Now it’s time to assemble! Lay a crêpe on a plate. Spoon a banana and some sauce inside, and fold. Top with whipped cream, more sauce, and sugared pecans. Don’t skimp on the pecans! The contrast of the soft crêpe with the crunchy pecans is amazing.

Have fun with crêpes—the things you can put in them are only as limited as your imagination (or your grocery budget as some of us may have it). Piles of fresh strawberries … the traditional butter and sugar … and all sorts of savory goodness! I’m envisioning something with blue cheese. And spinach. Sarah and I ate a couple with bacon and melted cheese inside. Make them this weekend and you’ll be thanking yourself.

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A girl with a 'stache

This post is dedicated to our second cat. Her name was supposed to be Seal, after the cat in “Sarah, Plain and Tall”. But we had just moved to Spain and my Dad was adamant about translating that to “Foca”. She was an adorable little thing. And she had a ‘stache. A large, white, unapologetic ‘stache right under her wet little nose.

Foca circa 1992

We also called her “Focahontas”, and immortalized her in the following cartoon:

Just chillin’.

Please don’t ask me why she’s sitting next to a smokin’ peace-lovin’ groover–but I can detect clear disapproval in the turn of her mouth. Can’t you?

Focahontas then became a character of great import in our short-lived comic-strip about 2 French women of the court during the reign of the Louis XVI in Versailles. Or was it Louis XIV?

Please notice the cork atop her "do"

But I diverge.

Foca suffered brain-damage as a young kitten when she came barreling down the hall and ran straight into my Mom’s shinbone. For the next few days, she had a number of little “episodes”: her eyes would become bulbously wide, she would start meowing in an alien-like, deep voice, and turned in circles while drooling. I thought there was a strong likelihood that she was possessed, but the vet explained that her brain had swollen. And when the swelling went down, she was left … intellectually incapacitated. Ergo: we would toss a toy down the hall; she would run towards the toy at full speed, but halfway down the hall she would flop onto her side to take a snooze. Years later, she fell 2 stories from our kitchen terrace in Valencia after attempting a leap from the top of our washer to a nearby window ledge. The additional mental damage that caused is as of yet untold.

She drowned our socks in her water bowl. She compulsively wiped condensation off mirrors and windows with her paws, with a spirit of great industry. She was weaned too early, so at night she would snuggle down with us and suck our fingers while kneading with her paws to stimulate milk-production. I’m sorry, Foca, for all the letdowns you experienced when no milk came forth from our fingerpads.

But I do her great injustice if I don’t speak of her one great accomplishment. Picture this: it’s 2 am. A young Jenna gets up to go pee in the night. The darkness is thick and swirling—an eery silence presses around her. She approaches the bathroom—but wait! Hark, a strange tinkling sound! A pair of glowing eyes! What foul deed is afoot? Marry, what wraithlike apparition has wandered in from the depths of the night?

It was Foca, perched on the toilet seat, takin’ care of business. Really. She did this occasionally throughout the years but never flushed, the wench.

So the moral of the story is … if you’re having trouble potty training your child, don’t worry, because if our brain-damaged cat could do it, chances are your child will figure it out in due time. There is a place beyond the diapers, and in that place the light of hope dwelleth (someone remind me of that when it’s my turn to struggle through the piles of soiled little poo-packages).

On the subject of girls with ‘staches, and to get your mind off the hideous phrase “poo-packages” that I never should have coined, here are a few more pictures. Please don’t be frightened.

The 'staches of Christmas 2003

More ‘staches during the fateful Xmas ’03

Postscript: ignore the 1999 date in orange on that picture. I never bothered to set the date on my camera. It’s just the kinda girl I am.

Tomorrow, a recipe post for Bananas Foster Crêpes!