Beet and Cauliflower Soup

This soup has amazing color to it and is really tasty. Its a puree soup so you can choose how blended you actually want to have it be perfectly smooth or a little chunky.
Ingredients needed:
Olive oil
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
1 medium cauliflower head
4 medium to large beets
½ teaspoon sugar
1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
5 cups broth (about...enough to cover the veggies)
1½ cup milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Sour cream
Fresh dill

*First step should really be to just get everything (beets, cauliflower, onion, garlic) chopped up into chunks that are about an inch (maybe a little smaller) and set the beet and cauliflower to the side
*Take the chopped onion and garlic and put them in the pan with enough oil to sautee it and turn on the heat to medium. Cook it until the onion begins to become transparent.
*Add in the cayenne and sugar and saute while stirring for about two minutes.
*Add the beets and cauliflower to the pan and add enough broth to cover them. Bring it to a simmer. Keep it at a low boil for 20-30 minutes, basically until the beets get tender enough to be poked through with a fork.
*Once it is cooked take it off the heat and let it cool for about 5 minutes until you can use an immersion blender safely inside the pan.
*If you want it to be a little chunkier I would suggest taking out a couple of ladle-fulls of the whole veggies and set them aside. Blend what is left until it is smooth. **If you want it to be only a little chunky, then when it seems to be about halfway to smooth add in the reserved pieces. Basically when you put the reserved stuff in depends on how chunky you want it to get.
*Once it is the consistency that you want, start adding the milk, salt and pepper to it as well as . You may want more or less, depending on how thick you want the ending soup to be.
*If you feel the need to reheat it, you can do that, but it should still be warm enough to simply serve. Put it into bowls and add a dollop of sour cream and some fresh chopped dill to the top and its ready to eat!

Croatian Sour Soup

This was one of my favorite recent trial recipes that have have done recently. Its hearty and the broth is a really lovely consistancy.
What you will need:
2 medium potatoes
1 large onion, diced
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
2 tablespoons oil
2 cloves garlic
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 bay leaf
1 carrot, diced
1 parsnip, siced
2 stalks celery, chopped (you can include the green stuff on top if your stalk still has it)
2 tablespoons whole wheat flour
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 Tablespoons Cider Vinegar
5 cups vegetable stock
½ cup sauerkraut
Sour cream for topping
Fresh chives for topping

Ok, I realize that looks like a lot, I promise its not!
*First you need to peel and chop the potatoes and start them boiling in some salted water. They need to be partially cooked before they are added to the soup because the other stuff doesn't need to cook for quite as long in the broth.
*As that is cooking put the oil in the bottom of the soup pan and saute the onion and the paprika until the onion starts to soften. Add the garlic and saute a little bit more. This should only take about 5 minutes.
*Add the fennel, bay leaf, carrot, parsnip, and celery and continue to saute them, making sure that everything is coated in the oil and that the vegies have a good start on cooking. Stir every once in a while but not too much. This should take about five minutes.
*Sift the flour onto the cooking vegies. Mixing it in now prevents lumps! Stir it in well and let it simmer a little bit so the flour can soak up the liquid and the oil that is in the pan.
*Add the salt, pepper, vinegar, and vegetable stock and get it up to a simmer.
*Add the potatoes in to cook the last little bit (about 10 minutes) with the other ingredients.
*Stir in the sauerkraut and it is ready to serve.
This is really good with some rye bread (the stuff here doesn't have caraway seeds in it which I don't like) or any of the heavier breads out there. The sour cream and chives are just dolloped and sprinkled on top when the soup is served!

Crepes, wonderful crepes

So here is a quick thing that just takes a little standing in the kitchen mostly, just while cooking the crepes in the pan.
What you need is:
1 Cup plain white flour
2 Eggs
½ Cup water
½ Cup milk
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter (melted)
a little oil for the pan

The first time I made this I had a little bit of an issue with lumps in the batter but I worked out that it was a problem that I didn't have enough moisture in the early stages of the mixing. This is the best method I have come up with for making great crepes:
* put the flour in the mixing bowl and make a little dip in the middle and crack both eggs into the bowl
*mix the milk and water together in a cup and then dribble just enough of the liquid into the bowl with the eggs and flour to start the mixing process
*Using a spoon or a silicon spatula start mixing the ingredients
*Continue adding the liquid to the batter until all of it is mixed in
*Using a whisk briskly stir the mixture until it is smooth
¤¤This is the point to add any spices or flavors to the batter if you want to try doing that, in the second picture of crepes that is what I did, I added chai flavors to the batter and it gave it a light flavor that harmonize with the filling I put in it. You don't have to, these crepes are great on their own, but its an option¤¤
*Once the batter is smooth, melt the butter and pour it into the batter along with the salt. Mix them together well.
*Turn on the stove to a medium heat and place the pan on to warm, using a paper towel, spread a really thin layer of oil on it. If you use a non-stick pan you don't absolutely do this but it might work better if you do, it will help brown the crepes. You know its oiled enough when you can see teeny tiny beads of oil on the non-stick pans or when there is an almost invisible layer of shine on a non-stick pan.
*Using a ladle or a cup measure, pour some of the batter into the center of the pan (about 1/3 of a cup is probably enough depending on the size you want, it should be enough to ooze out to a little more than the center half of the pan). Quickly lift the pan and tilt in a circular pattern so spread the liquid out across the pan more broadly.
¤¤IF YOUR CREPE SLIDES AROUND THE PAN SO YOU CAN'T DO THIS YOU USED TOO MUCH OIL, your crepes will be on the thick side and take longer to cook. This is easy to fix, use less oil for the next one!¤¤
*You can tell its about time to flip the crepe when the batter is no longer moist or shiney.
*Once the second side is cooked, you're done! Add toppings or stuffing and you can eat!