Crepes & Steak

Yesterday's awful weather caused some difficulties for me to get to school.  When I got to the train station the rain and wind was at its worst.  I ran to the parking meter and the second I took out a dollar bill it got soaked and wouldn't go into the machine.  I tried another bill and the same thing happened.  At this point I was already soaked and panicking because the train was about to arrive.  Before I knew it, all of my money was soaked and I didn't know what to do.  The last thing I wanted was to come back from school to find my car towed or an outrageous parking ticket.  I trudged back to my car as the train whipped by and broke down.   I hate missing class because I feel like I'm going to miss something important.

I figured I'd make the most out of my day and at least attempt to make crepes, one of the things we were supposed to make in class.  It was actually kind of fun to make.. I made some adjustments to the recipe based on the ingredients we had in the house.  Here's my adjusted recipe for crepes:

1 cup blended whole wheat and white flour

1/2 tsp salt

3 eggs

1 1/4 cups skim milk

2 T melted butter

I combined the dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately and then whisked them together.  I let the mixture set while I assembled filling ingredients.  I decided to make savory crepes for a light lunch for my mom and I.  I filled the crepes with herbed goat cheese, quartered cherry tomatoes, and chopped spinach (I defrosted a frozen package and seasoned it with olive oil, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and a no-salt seasoning blend).

Right before making the crepes, I mixed in the melted butter.  I sprayed a saute pan with non-stick spray and added  a ladle of crepe batter.   I twirled the pan to get the batter to form a thin layer on the pan.  It was a little difficult to flip because the batter was very thin.  I'm thinking it would have been thicker if I used whole milk instead of skim (but it was all we had).  Then, I filled the crepes and heated them up so the cheese melted and the filling was warm (you can heat them under a broiler or use the microwave like I did).  I drizzled (or attempted to drizzle- the bottle made it kind of hard to lightly drizzle) balsamic syrup over the crepes and garnished with more tomatoes.

This made for a very light and satisfying lunch.  Well, it was a light lunch until I started eating the crepes that I messed up ;)

I also figured yesterday's day off would be a good day to practice making steak, pommes persaillade, and haricot vert since my practical exam is on THURSDAY!  The grocery store didn't have haricot vert, so I just made the steak and potatoes.

I stayed very organized with my mise en place perfect and ready to go:

My medium diced potatoes were par boiled and cooling before they were ready to be sauteed.

I made my steak and pan sauce and it turned out pretty good.  The flavor and consistency of the pan sauce was not the same as it will be when I make it in school because I used store-bought beef stock as opposed to the homemade veal stock at school.  I'm glad I got the practice though so I feel more confident for Thursday's exam!

The sun is finally out so I'm hoping for a smooth commute to school today!  Hopefully I didn't miss too much yesterday!