As you're reading this post, I'm currently on vacation in New York City. If you're feeling jealous, I'd have to say you're justified. New York is an awesome place and I'm so excited to spend a few days seeing the sites, watching some shows and shopping the stores with my mother-in-law and sister-in-law as part of our annual Moss women trip. (In case you are wondering, it's not like we feel the need to escape the Moss men. It's just that they can't handle shopping the way we can. Few can, actually.)
To give you a little taste of what I'm enjoying out there, I thought I'd finish up crepe week with these cheese blintzes. The first time I tried them on our Moss women trip last summer and I've been talking about them ever since. Our hotel was across the street from a well known New York diner and we ate there for breakfast most mornings. On the menu at this diner were cheese blintzes. I had no idea what they were, but, feeling adventurous, I ordered them anyway. As my sister-in-law said, "Go big or go home." and I decided to go big. (Although when you apply that rule to food, it usually also means "Go home big.") It turns out that cheese blintzes are a crepe filled with a sweetened cream cheese/cottage cheese mixture that is fried and topped with fruit. It was like a crepe cheesecake for breakfast, and was one of the best things I ate in New York. Let's just say I ordered them again the next day, but this time I made sure to split it with someone.
Once home I tried to replicate the blintz, but without luck. I all but gave up on the idea when I found a cookbook put out by the New York diner where we had eaten. Sure enough, it had the recipe for cheese blintzes in it and it wasn't long before I was making my own blintzes at home. I've made a couple changes to the recipe, such as using a different crepe recipe that I prefer and baking the blintzes instead of frying them for ease of preparation and less mess. The end result still tastes like the wonderful blintzes I had in New York, though, and even won over my skeptical husband with them. If you want something delicious and out of the ordinary for your breakfast, this is the perfect choice.
Cheese Blintzes
12 6-8 inch crepes
2 8 oz packages cream cheese (sorry, low-fat will not work here)
1 cup large-curd cottage cheese
2/3 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 T melted butter
Toppings:
Applesauce
Fruit
Sour cream
Syrup
1. Heat oven to 375 degrees and brush a 9x13 pan with melted butter. Stir cream cheese, cottage cheese, sugar, salt and vanilla extra in a medium bowl with a wooden spoon until blended.
2. To fill each crepe, spoon 3 T of filling cream cheese mixture in the center of once crepe, then fold the bottom part of the crepe up over the filling, followed by folding both sides in, and finally folding the top down. Place seam side down in prepared baking dish. Repeat with remaining ingredients.
3. Brush the tops of each blintz with melted butter and place in oven. Bake for 10-15 minutes, or until they are puffed and turning golden in color. Remove from oven.
4. To serve, top blintzes with your choice of applesauce, fruit, sour cream or syrup.
Recipe Source: adapted from Welcome to Junior's! Remembering Brooklyn with Recipes and Memories from its Favorite Restaurant.
0 Click For Comments:
Post a Comment