Swedish Crepes

Recently (as in, since yesterday), Sean and I have been talking about what it would look like for us to own our circumstances, instead of being owned by them. Since he started a new job a couple months ago, we have been busy, overwhelmed, and exhausted — on survival mode. We survived, unfortunately, by cutting back on many things — sleep, time with friends, time with each other. This cutting back has been good — it’s kept us from killing each other out of pure stress, for example — but it’s left me feeling a little empty.

I’m tired of saying that we can’t!  Today, I’m saying…. Yes We Can!

…or something like that. The main idea is, we’ve been in reaction mode for a few months — reacting to our circumstances — and we want to turn that around. We’ve always made it a goal to live on purpose for our values, but lately, we’ve been letting life events dictate to us what our priorities need to be, or ought to be. We haven’t owned our circumstances… they’ve been owning us. Let me give some examples:

• Getting up at 5:15am every day… owned.
• Three hours of commuting every day… owned.
• Must go to bed at 8:30 every night because we’re so tired… owned.
• No time to shop, groceries in the house limited to milk, eggs, and some horseradish mustard… owned.
• Bird pooped on my head on the way home from work… owned. SO OWNED.

Yes. Yes, that happened. Well, all of those things happen frequently, but the bird poop thing, that JUST happened. As I was about to get on the bus, a pigeon left a small, sticky gift on my head. For a split second, I considered going ahead and getting on the bus… with the bird crap in my hair. I take CTA seriously, people… you don’t miss a bus for any reason. You don’t know when the next one is going to come!

At the last minute I thought better of it, ducked into the 7-11 for some napkins to do a quick wipe at my hair, and waited for the next bus. I then had the pleasure of riding in close company with a group of people all thinking… is it me that smells? Nope… it’s definitely that other chick.

Alright, so the pigeon probably won that round. But we’re refusing to give up! There are certain things that we won’t compromise because of tight circumstances. The reality is that our time is very limited, but we’re committed to making the most of it and focusing on what we can do to improve our marriage, live healthily, align ourselves with God’s purposes for us, and build strong relationships with people around us. Take that, pigeon!

And incidentally, if you do find yourself (like us) with only horseradish mustard, milk, and eggs… try making these Swedish crepes (sans mustard). They’re like huge Swedish pancakes — eggy, delicate, but surprisingly substantial — and we always have the ingredients lying around. The recipe is from a cookbook compiled by the ladies in the church I grew up going to, but I’ve altered it a bit and elaborated on the method. Making crepes is one of those things anyone can do if they’re told how, and this is our foolproof method (aka, Sean makes these).

I’ve also included my mom’s recipe for syrup below (see her comment… it’s from her family, because they couldn’t buy syrup from the store). It’s not your Grade B pure maple, but again, this is what I grew up with and it tastes SO MUCH better than anything sticky-sweet that comes in a plastic bottle, spiked with weird preservatives. You can see that we also dressed these up with the very berry coulis… twas incredible! On the scale of owning vs. owned… I’d say we own this no-fuss breakfast-for-dinner!

Swedish Crepes

Adapted from Jan Dwight

Serves 2 – but easily multiplied for more people!

• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup flour
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 tablespoons melted butter or margarine, slightly cooled

Whip eggs with a whisk until light and fluffy. Starting with the milk, add other ingredients, one at a time, beating until well combined. Cook on heated 6-inch nonstick frying pan.

To cook crepes: Heat a nonstick frying pan on medium until rather warm (not to where a bead of water will sizzle, but warm). Pour about a 1/4 cup of crepe batter into the pan. Tilt and swirl the pan in a circular motion until the whole bottom of the pan is covered with batter. Use a heatproof spatula to push the batter down from the edges of the pan if any has crept up the sides – you want the whole bottom of the pan covered with batter, but none of the sides, or it’ll be hard to flip. Wait until you can see air bubbles rising from the bottom of the crepe to the top. Gently flip the crepe over to the other side, cook just 1-2 minutes more until golden brown.

The first crepe will take a long time to cook (because inevitably, you’ll be impatient and the pan will still be too cold when you start cooking) and it may stick. As the pan heats up, the crepes will cook rather quickly since they are so thin, and they won’t stick any more – the butter in the batter will create a nice barrier. You want thin crepes with the lacey patterns you can see in the pictures.

And if you mess this up, I guarantee that whatever you pour into the pan will come out tasting delicious, no matter what it looks like!

Grandma’s Maple(ish) Syrup

• ½ cup white sugar
• ½ cup brown sugar
• ½ cup water
• ¼ teaspoon maple flavoring (in the spice section of your grocery store, by the vanilla, etc.)

Bring the water and sugars to a boil, stirring occasionally. When it reaches a boil, turn the heat down and add the maple flavoring. You can keep it warm while you are waiting to serve, but keep in mind that it will thicken as it cools.

Tagged as: breakfast, eggs