Bomb, New Year,

Just read a blog from a friend in Sweden. She spends her retirement travelling, safely, all over the world and lives in a small town where she expects to be safe and she has just had a bomb explode at the front door of her apartment. What a dreadful thing to happen. Luckily nobody was hurt. One normally thinks of Sweden as a "restful" country, but apparently not.

Well, only a few more days until 2019. I have my champers cooling in the fridge - well of course I have champers on Sunday morning too. Get a double whammy this weekend. I will probably stay up although Matt won't. He didn't last year anyway. I wish you all a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year and hope whatever you wish for will come true.

I have always loved Crêpes Suzette and was surprised to find I didn't have a recipe in my files. I thought they would be perfect for New Year's Eve. My first husband thought you could bottle the sauce and make a fortune. Caster Sugar is more or less the same as the sugar we use here anyway.

Crêpes Suzette

1 classic pancake recipe 
3 Tbs caster sugar 
250 ml freshly squeezed orange juice (2-3 oranges)
zest 1 orange
1 tsp lemon juice
1 Tbs Grand Marnier or Cointreau
50 g unsalted butter

1. Prepare pancakes following a classic recipe Fold the pancakes into quarters.

2. Tip the caster sugar into a non-stick frying pan and set the pan over a low-medium heat. Allow the sugar to melt slowly without stirring and continue to cook until it becomes a deep amber-coloured caramel.

3. Immediately slide the pan off the heat and add the orange juice – be careful as it may splatter and spit as it hits the hot caramel. Add the orange zest, lemon juice, the Grand Marnier and return the pan to a low heat to re-melt the caramel into the liquid.

4. Add the butter to the sauce in small pieces, bring to the boil and simmer gently until glossy and reduced slightly. Add the pancakes to the pan and warm through. Serve immediately.

Servings: 4

Source: Good Food Magazine

Have a great weekend

Unknown, Bowling, Pancake Day.

We seem to be getting more and more calls from “unknown Name” – the numbers are from all over the place and although I generally never answer them, they are becoming something of a nuisance. The trouble is, the odd time, they are from someone I know, like when my cousin called from California, as I said before, I don’t know what made me answer that one. Even my cleaner has a phone number with Unknown – I think it’s a cell phone. How many people do bother to answer calls from sources they don’t know. Maybe shut ins who are lonely and this is how they get caught in scams. Once in a while I do answer and I get someone selling duct cleaning, tough cookies Mr. I live in an apartment thank you. Wish I could get rid of this irritation. We are already registered for no advertising calls but presumably if they are Unknown, they can’t be stopped either. Don’t know how it works.

Today we are going to lunch and bowling with our Travel League. Missed last month, and afterwards were we glad as it’s the day our brakes went. We could have been out in the middle of nowhere when it happened, in fact, probably would have been. Today it’s all in town eating at Angel’s Diner and playing at Victoria Bowl. All of which are basically ‘just up the road’. I’d like to play well, but it doesn’t matter a damn because it’s just friendly stuff. Angel’s is a chain and seem to do pretty good food. There is one young man who often accompanies us and who often orders fish and chips. I frequently pinch a chip from his plate and this particular Angels has excellent chips, or French fries as they are known here. Not sure why. I don’t usually order any for me as they are not considered diet food, at least not on any diet plan I have come across.

I knew Pancake Day was fast approaching, Shrove Tuesday in case you don’t know. In England they used to have (maybe still do) Pancake races when people ran tossing pancakes in a pan whilst doing so. Diet or no diet I was planning to make some pancakes as I do enjoy them. Then I came across this recipe for one of my favourite foods. Tickled me, so very English to talk about elevating it to a “smart pudding”, dessert please. To me a pudding is something served in the nursery. This recipe comes from BBC Good Food. Do remember that caster sugar in the UK is very similar to the sugar we buy every day in North America. I see they give liqueur quantity by the tbs. well, if you like, we usually are more heavy handed when we make the sauce. We always used Cognac as well. My father used to say if you could bottle the sauce you would make a fortune.

Crêpes Suzette

 

Serves 4 - 6
This classic French recipe is a fine way to elevate the humble pancake into a smart pudding.

Ingredients

• 1 x classic pancake recipe See Jacques Pépin
• 3 tbsp caster sugar
• 250ml freshly squeezed orange juice (2-3 oranges)
• zest 1 orange
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp Grand Marnier or Cointreau
• 50g unsalted butter

 

Method

1. Prepare pancakes following the classic recipe - see 'Goes well with'. Fold the pancakes into quarters.
2. Tip the caster sugar into a non-stick frying pan and set the pan over a low-medium heat. Allow the sugar to melt slowly without stirring and continue to cook until it becomes a deep amber-coloured caramel.
3. Immediately slide the pan off the heat and add the orange juice – be careful as it may splatter and spit as it hits the hot caramel. Add the orange zest, lemon juice, the Grand Marnier and return the pan to a low heat to re-melt the caramel into the liquid.
4. Add the butter to the sauce in small pieces, bring to the boil and simmer gently until glossy and reduced slightly. Add the pancakes to the pan and warm through. Serve immediately.

Have a great day.

Sexual Abuse, Virus, Crêpes.

There’s an article running on CBC at the moment talking about sexual abuse and the Scouts, the Scouts are apologising and saying cover ups did exist, etc. etc. So now we have all these Catholic ministers accused as well as Scout masters, and I am tending to wonder, did it all really happen? I find it difficult to believe that so much of it went on without anyone knowing about it. Makes me wonder how many people have jumped on the bandwagon once one or two scandals were revealed. Its like the sex scandal with Tiger Woods, suddenly all these women come out of the woodwork saying “I had sex with Tiger too” like saying I’m an easy mark. It happens to politicians as well, suddenly when one scandal breaks, dozens of women rush forward to assure the world that they too were abused in one way or another. Their little moment of fame. Maybe I’m wrong and there all these perverts and abusers running around, but I find it hard to credit that its all true. You’re telling me that all of these children had such lousy relationships with their parents that they couldn’t say anything at the time?

After working on my computers for a while, I can now rest assured that my laptop is virus free. I have a technician from At Your Door Computers who comes here and does a great job on fixing stuff. However, my evening has got a bit short so I can’t do much of a blog.

I love Crêpes Suzettes, I think they are one of the best desserts ever invented. My father always said we should bottle the juice and sell it. Absolutely gorgeous. I think I have told the story where once Matt and I were making them in the UK and we ran out of a lot of the ingredients and our own crêpe sauce was virtually pure alcohol, they tasted pretty good too, hic. Shrove Tuesday is known as Pancake Day in the UK and by pancakes we mean what are always called crêpes over here, pancake being more like flapjacks or Welsh pancakes. We always used to have our pancakes with lemon juice, butter and sugar, yummy. I haven’t done that in years, I really should do so as I enjoyed them so much. You can, by the way, make a stack of pancakes, or crêpes if you prefer, layer them with grease proof paper and freeze them. They keep quite a while and are excellent. We used to do that all the time when we had our catering business in the States.

Crêpes suzette

James Martin: Sunday Kitchen

A classic French dessert that always impresses. You can make the crêpes in advance and finish the sauce just before serving.

 

Ingredients

For the crêpes

• 125g/4½oz plain flour

• 1 free-range egg

• 1 tsp melted butter

• 300ml/10½fl oz milk

• butter, for frying

For the sauce

• 50g/1¾oz unsalted butter

• 1 orange, zest and juice

• 2 oranges, juice only

• 1 lemon, zest and juice

• 3 tbsp caster sugar (North American sugar is fine enough)

• 2 tbsp orange liqueur

• 2 tbsp brandy

Preparation method

1. For the crêpes, place the flour into a bowl. Add the egg, melted butter and milk and whisk to a smooth batter. Set aside for at least one hour, preferably overnight.

2. Heat a frying pan until medium hot, melt a little butter in the pan, then add a ladle of batter and swirl to coat the bottom of the pan. Cook for 1-2 minutes, then flip and cook for a further minute.

3. Slide the crêpe from the pan and place on greaseproof paper. Repeat with the remaining batter, layering the crêpes with greaseproof paper as you go. The crêpes can be chilled or frozen at this point and used later.

4. For the sauce, heat a frying pan until hot, add the butter, orange zest and juice, lemon zest and juice and the caster sugar.

5. Cook for a few minutes until just thickened and bubbling, then remove the pan from the heat.

6. Fold the crêpes into quarters and carefully lay into the hot sauce. Return the pan to the heat then add the orange liqueur and brandy and flame to burn off the alcohol. (CAUTION: Keep your face and hair away from the flames. Do not leave the pan unattended.)

7. Cook for a couple of minutes until the crêpes are heated through.

8. To serve, spoon the crêpes onto serving plates and spoon the sauce over the top.

Have a great weekend, its Family Day on Monday here, President’s Day in the States.