This is the Doodle that will become my Illustration Friday for last Friday. The theme is Wrinkled and it had me stumped for inspiration. This meeting doodle, cleaned up a bit with ink, will become my illustration. The scribbled text on the side is my husband’s input :)

I’ll hopefully post the finished one tonight.

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Now, he is a pretty good hubby and I have never actually made crepes, so I figured why not give it a try…

First step was to find a crepe recipe. I adore Alton Brown, so I snagged his off of foodtv.com. At the point of reading the recipe i realized this was going to end up being lunch, not breakfast, as he suggested chilling the mixture in the fridge for an hour prior to cooking.

So I mixed up the batter – easy peasy in the blender. I followed Alton’s recipe for sweet crepes, using Orange Curaçao as the liqueur. And stuck it in the fridge.

Then I stuck my mixture bowl and whip from my much adored kitchen aid mixer in the freezer for chilling. Then I took a break!

I used my now chilled mixer to beat the half pint of heavy cream with a spoonful of powdered sugar. The Boy loved licking the beater! IF you’ve never made homemade whipped cream, you should. You’ll never go back to the canned stuff. If I’d thought about it, or was making it for a dessert for guests, I would have added a dash of the orange liqueur to the mix.

So now I was ready to try the crepes. I followed Alton’s directions and was amazed how easy they were. The first one didn’t work very well, I ended up folding it up when i tried to flip it, but like waffles, I always expect the first one to mess up. It took a few to get the hang of it, but once i realized the consistency created is very strong, not like pancakes or omelets where if you screw up on the flip you can’t fix it, it was easier. The only issue is the amount of time it takes–each takes less than a minute to cook, but you’re using such a small amount of batter (1/8 cup) for each, that it took me probably 30 minutes to cook them! I had a pretty good assembly line set up. I had my big wooden cutting board sitting on the stove next to the pan and i’d take up one, let it cool while the next was cooking, then move it over to make room for the next one. Then when I had 3 cooling, I’d stack the coolest up into a little tower of crepes.

Now for filling. I melted butter in my still hot crepe skillet, sliced up a couple of bananas and threw them in. I sprinkled a little brown sugar on and stirfried them up.

Assembly was easy. Crepes are easy to work with, so I just took a flat crepe on a plate, spooned bananas down the center in a line, folded both sides up like a cannoli, and topped with a dollop of whip cream.

The funny thing was that The Boy refused to eat them folded up and just ate the unfolded ones–no bananas or whipped creme. But the husband liked it so much he even voluntarily cleaned up where i had destroyed the kitchen like a cooking tornado.
I thought the crepes by themselves were pretty darn good. A very delicate flavor.

I’m not sure how many the recipe made, but I had maybe 15 left over. Enough for more breakfasts or desserts. (the picture at the top is the amount I had left) And Alton tells you how to freeze them too.

Bottom Line – time consuming, but not difficult–make sure some else can watch the almost-3-year-old during the cooking process! I’d really like to try some savory (instead of sweet) ones for maybe a party.

Too much of this, i suppose!

That was the Sweetwater 420 Festival at Candler Park last weekend.
This weekend will be the Inman Park Festival, and I’m going to bring my camera. Last year I got lots of great pictures, and the arts/crafts booths have tons of great ideas. So I’ll plan to post some of my finds next week!

So, my crafting has been much lighter than usual, although I have managed to squeeze in a tad of art time. (I’ve got several things in my sketchbook I need to post, or maybe color). I have a baby shower to go to in a few weeks too, and I’d like to create something for a gift, any ideas? It’s a boy.

Sweater recycling:
Old sweaters (and you know we all have them) are a fun and easy thing to recycle. They are forgiving of mediocre sewing skills as well..
here are some ideas…

The Ele-purse – great for little girls!

The easy peasy hostess gifty – the wine cozy!

The always adorable Octopuppet

Another cute toy, the sweater snake!

non-sweater related…
Recycling furniture into toys!
The uber-cool play stove-includes tutorial

The Primative Robot:

Pencil sketch, scanned and colored in Photoshop.

I was playing around with alot of different ideas around the idea of a primitive robot. I was actually sketching a robot to look like ‘old iron’ (an old mainframe computer from the dark ages – like the 40s/50s). But the idea of making the robot a headhunter, with shrunken robot heads in his hand, kept pulling on my mind, and this is what came out. the original idea was less dark — no pile of robot parts for him to be standing on — but it worked well as a background i think, and it was fun to draw.

Which is, of course, the point!

So, anyone know what the tip of his spear is supposed to be? I’ll be impressed!
[edit: the answer is linked in the comments thread, if you’re interested :)]

Previous Illustration Fridays here.

Comments welcome!

Inspirations:

Fueling my faux-sushi obsession, these Peeps sushi are totally neato. (via Not Martha)

Q D Patooties ultra fabulous: Super Sock Pig! W/ Tutorial! This looks so easy and fun.

I’m fascinated with things you can do with old cameras (Photojojo) Also from Photojojo – how to photograph food!

This is way late for Easter, but I love these ideas for pimping your chocolate bunny!.. must save for next year. (Bitter Betty)

Really cool homemade beads from recycled paper from A Storybook Life (via Craft). I love the idea of this…

A great tutorial – mattress stitching for toys from MochiMochi.

Electric Origami from the always faboo Evil Mad Scientists!

Homemade Butter, from Brownie Points

Boing Boing links to a fabulous snake made from keyboard keys. way cool..

Thanks for all of the comments and insight, and please, if you ever have feedback, do post it!

Fuji Mama, email me at dot -at- dabbled.org with your addy to get your prize!

also.. for those who said you like to see art, here’s a few links to some of the sketches that I haven’t posted here, but can be found at mondayartday

Willy Wonka
Pirate Pin-up Girl
Wonder Woman
Organic Abstract doodle
Half Beast

Pencil sketch, colored in Photoshop.

I too was stuck on how to execute the Fail theme, and so I went back to my recent nursery rhyme theme and this just popped into my head.

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater
Had a wife and couldn’t keep her
He put her in a pumpkin shell
and there he kept her very well.
Sounds like a Failed marriage to me!

See the other nursery rhymes in the series….