Thousand layers of awesome

When I first came over to Japan, I vowed that I was going to have a kick ass christmas, since I wasn't planning on going home (too expensive). Sadly, through a series of unfortunate events, my Christmas plans have pretty much changed into staying in Okayama in order to avoid having to spend Christmas (and New Years) alone. Cause let's face it, that would suck. A lot.

So, because many people who aren't me are heading off or heading home for the holidays, we decided to throw an early christmas party and have a kind of white elephant esque gift exchange. We also decided we were going to make dessert after having dinner somewhere in the city. Our dessert of the evening was crepes, but, not just any old crepe. We were planning on doing a mille crepe.

It's actually kind of funny how I initially was like OMG LET'S DO A MILLE CREPE. It started when my sister introduced me to this anime about kids who wanted to become patisseres or however you spell it. They wanted to be bakers of sweets. Granted, these are middle schooler's we're talking about, but the show, called Yumeiro Patissere, is super super cute. And the food looks really good. You know me. I can't pass up a good anime about food. :)

But one of the first things the main character (Ichigo) has to make (which she has no idea how to do) is a crepe - the mille crepe, to be specific. I saw it and went "OH HELL YES." :D I haven't been able to stop watching it now hahaha.

Now I really want to make another one. But I want to do it in a slightly... less OMG WHIPPED CREAM EVERYWHERE kind of way. I was looking at pictures of them online, and they actually don't put any fruit in between the layers (of which there are about twenty). That explains why it looked so much nicer...

They also use much thinner layers of whipped cream. Like really spartan kind of, just enough to coat it. I think we used a little bit too much this time around, but hey, it was our first time and we were just having fun with it. :) I got really good at making nice round crepes too lol.

But yeah! Imagine the things you could do with it. I want to try doing chocolate crepes! I imagine you just have to add chocolate to the batter and mix well? I'm hoping that's the case. Either way, I'm super excited!

I swear though, crepes are like, the new tortilla because they're way easy to make and I don't have to go all the way in to the import store to buy tortillas, they're less messy, and they're cheaper. Crepes it is! I have this sinking feeling that they're not really healthy though... lol.

I was reading somewhere online that some people put ratatouille in the savory crepes; it sounds intriguing and I want to try it sometime. I predict that this year will be the year of the crepe experimentation!

It's funny, because as a kid, I always wanted to eat crepes when we went out, but they were these like, forbidden restaurant foods because they weren't really like a real meal, they were more like a snack sometimes or dessert, and they were usually pretty expensive because they seemed all fancy like.

Now, my crepes aren't near as perfect as the kind they make at the stands, but they are quite delicious and I don't need to shell out 500 yen for one. Hell, I can shell out 500 yen and get like... 8 of them lol. And damn do they make good substitutes for cheese quesadillas. I'm actually kind of liking Japanese cheese now, because it tastes fantastic on these crepes.

I need more suggestions of what to put in it... I'm thinking maybe bananas and chocolate for the next ones. I've also been meaning to try doing the just plain sugar and cinnamon (kind of like lefsa) with a thin coating of butter just to hold the cinnasugar on. I have very high hopes for that.

In fact, I ate dinner tonight early. I might just have to try making those as a reward for taking out all my cardboard even though my kitchen is super clean right now.

Man, being an adult rocks sometimes. :)