Brunch 2: Crepes, Eggs and Potatoes

This is yet another Sunday brunch post. Some yummy Crepes filled with eggs and topped with potatoes. Vegetarians, feel free to use tofu for the scramble and an egg substitute in the crepes.

My usual goto are Eggs and Potatoes with a slice of toast. But I felt a bit fancy and tried these crepes. They are delicious.

Add some roasted tomatoes and a couple of orange slices and you have a beautiful meal.

Egg Scramble:
Onion - small chopped 1/2
Eggs - 4
Salt and Paprika - To taste
Parsley/Cilantro - 1 Tbsp chopped
Milk - 2 tbsp
Butter - 1 tbsp

Beat all the ingredients for the scramble. Heat a pan and add some butter to the pan. Add the egg mixture and scramble till done.

Crepes:

All Purpose Flour - 1 Cup

Milk - 1/5 Cups

Butter - 1 Tbsp

Eggs - 2

Salt and Sugar - a pinch each

Thaw the butter and add all the other ingredients to the butter and whisk well until there are no lumps. Heat a pan and grease with some butter. Add about a 1/4 cup of batter to the pan and swirl around till it coats the pan. Cook for about 30 seconds and flip. Cook through and remove. Make the rest of the crepes with the batter.

Sautéed Potatoes:
Red Potatoes - 2
Salt and Paprika or Red Chili Powder - 1 tsp each
Garlic - 2 Cloves Crushed
Oil - 1 tbsp

Cut the potatoes into 1 inch pieces and boil till tender.
In a pan, heat the oil, add the garlic and sauté for 10 seconds. Add the potatoes and the salt and red chili. Sauté till the potatoes are golden brown at the edges.

Tomatoes:
Slice the Tomatoes and roast on an oiled pan till soft on both sides. Sprinkle with Salt,

Add some egg scramble to each crepe and roll. Top with the potatoes and serve with a couple slices of the tomatoes and the Orange slices.

Serve warm.

Minecraft Themed Birthday Cake

My favorite post on this blog has to be the Minecraft Cake I made for my son and his best friend. They share the same birthday and are best of friends since 1st grade. Their interest in characters changes every year and this was the Minecraft phase. It's been some time now and they still are big fans. Hey, I would take Minecraft over other games, it's just building and trading and I am ok with that!

I try to make a cake every year based on my son's current muse and this was the best one I ever made.

I did get the inspiration from another post online for the water and the bricks. Also, the grass tip for the piping was a really awesome idea too.

I used Blue Jello for the water, rice crispy treats for the building bricks, green colored frosting for the grass, chocolate cake for the soil and my son helped me make the characters, animals and the TNT blocks using printed make your own characters from the internet.

The key is to make everything yourself and not use the pre-made Jello, Rice Krispies or cake, since this will help in maintaining the correct dimensions needed to make the cake.

Since I was short on time, I used a boxed cake mix to make the Chocolate cake. Feel free to use a box cake or your own recipe.

Rice Krispies Treats:

Rice Krispies - 5 Cups

Butter - 2 Tbsp

Marshmallows - 25 to 30

On low heat, melt the butter and add the marshmallows. Mix until melted through and add the rice krispies. I used Kelloggs Rice Krispies. Mix well until well incorporated. While the mixture is sticky and still warm, grease a cake pan and add this mixture into the cake pan and smooth into a evenly. This should be about an inch and half to 2 inches in thickness. When slightly cool, cut into long blocks, about 3 inches wide and cool completely.

Chocolate Cake:

Using a box cake or a recipe of your choice, bake a chocolate cake in a sheet pan of your choice. The cake should be at least 4 inches in height after baking. Cook completely and set aside.

Blue Jell-O:

Kraft Jell-O - 2 Packets

Use the instructions on the back of the box to mix the Jell-O and pour into a cake pan. Make sure the depth is less than the Rice Krispie treats. It should be about an Inch or so in thickness. Once cooled and set, keep in the refrigerator until ready to assemble the cake.

Green Icing:

Use a boxed icing mix or make your own.

Powdered/Confectioners Sugar - 3 Cups

Butter - 1/3 Cup

Vanilla Extract - 2 Drops

Green Food Coloring - A few drops

Milk - a few Tbsp as required

Using a hand mixer or an electric mixer, beat the butter and slowly add the powdered sugar.

Beat well ad add the milk as needed to a make a stiff frosting mix. Add the vanilla extract and the food coloring and mix well.

Minecraft Characters:

There are several resources online to print, cut and make these characters. My son helped me make them and they are adorable.

When all the above steps have been complete, you are now ready to assemble the cake. There is no perfect way to doing this, so you can follow my version or assemble it in any other way you like. I stacked the chocolate cake but everything else is in a single layer.

First, cut and arrange the chocolate cake into the shape in the cake pictures above. Basically, we are trying to mimic the soil with the chocolate cake. 

Fit a piping bag with a grass tip (this is just a tip that has many tiny holes bent outwards) or just a ziploc bag snipped at the end and inserting this tip and sealing with a rubberband or a tape. Fill the bag with the frosting.

Pipe the grass onto the chocolate cake, where you gently press piping and quickly pulling off in order to make tiny thin grass like strings. Cover the entire cake with this piping.

Now, take the Rice Krispie block strips and place them around the perimeter, not evenly to mimic the blocks in Minecraft.  For all the remaining portion in the middle, cut the Jello to fit and place gently.

Top with the Minecraft Characters and you have your Minecraft themed Cake.

It does take some effort to make this, but it's totally worth it if your kid is into this. The look on my little ones faces were PRICELESS!