Several of my friends have been posting recipes on their blogs recently and this has inspired me to do a few myself. On May 2nd, I decided that I had better get to making Tony his favorite birthday dessert, a little late since his birthday is on April 20th. (If you recall, his sister Tammy had made him a cake since we had been in Park city earlier that day.) So here is the recipe for our family's beloved

Chocolate Lush:

1 stick butter or margarine
1 c. flour
1 - 8 oz. pkg. cream cheese
1 c. powdered sugar
2 sm. pkgs. instant chocolate pudding
3 c. milk
1 - 12 oz. container of Cool Whip
1 chocolate bar

Cut butter and flour together with a fork or pastry knife and then press into a 9"x13" pan. Bake until light brown (about 15 min.) at 375°. Cream together cream cheese and powdered sugar. Fold in 1 c. of Cool Whip. Spread mixture over cooled crust. Mix pudding with milk and spread over cream cheese layer. Spread remaining Cool Whip on top and shave bits of chocolate bar over dessert with a potato peeler. Refrigerate 3-4 hours.

Make sure after you're done mixing the pudding layer that you clean your utinsils immediately:

And here is a side view of a piece that I took using the macro setting on my camera and I thought it came out looking very luscious:

A couple of days later I decided to make crêpes. My dad learned how to make them while on his mission in France and made them often when I was young. After I got married, I asked for the recipe and he told me that he didn't have one, but that he would teach me how to make them. By the way, we pronounce them "crep" instead of "crape" like most people do here because it's closer to the French pronunciation which is basically "crep" but with a rolling "r".

I'm just going to be guessing on the recipe here, because I didn't decide to document this until after the batter was made. Next time I'll have to dump the amount I use into a measuring cup before it goes in the bowl so I can have a better idea of the amounts. The thing is, it's not a precise science and the final result tastes amazing with quite a large difference in amounts and/or ingredients. So here goes:

Crêpes

2 c. flour
2 T. sugar
1/4 t. salt
Mix these together with a wire whisk and then make a well in the center. Add
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
1/2 c. milk
and start whisking these into the dry ingredients. Keep adding more milk until the batter is the consistency of heavy cream. At this point I always taste the batter and add more salt and/or sugar.

Heat a non-stick skillet on medium to med/high heat and then wipe the bottom and sides with waxed paper.
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Using a 1/4 c. measuring cup, pour some batter into the middle of the skillet and immediately tilt the pan around in a circular motion



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so that the batter coats the bottom in a thin layer. If it doesn't spread thin enough, whisk more milk into your batter.






When batter has tiny bubbles and the edges are starting to brown (maybe about a minute or so, loosen the edge with t a butter knife
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then grab the edge with your fingers and flip it! Caution--it is pretty hot.
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Wait for about 20-30 seconds and then slide your finished crêpe out of the pan.

We usually eat them with a little butter and powdered sugar (my mom & dad love to also sprinkle lemon juice on the top) and then rolled. Of course you can use any kind of fruit filling and whipped cream or go the savory route and fill them with eggs, ham & cheese (if you are doing a savory filling you might want to lessen the sugar in the recipe and omit the vanilla).

I hope that if anyone is brave enough to try this that the ingredient amounts aren't completely off. Not only was I trying to estimate in my mind what I dump in, I also lessened it by about a third. I usually have two pans going at once and make lots because they freeze and reheat modestly well. And I almost forgot, kudos to Faith who was the photographer for this recipe!!!