The beginning of a new semester brings many things. New classes. New weather (Freakin’ freezin’ here in Boston, good ole’ 15 degree days). And… most importantly… since I cleaned out my pantry shelf and fridge food before I left for winter break, New Groceries.
Being a college student on a budget, with no car, and a long-ish walk to the local grocery chain, grocery days are few and far between and always a big event. I tend to get to the store every two weeks which means I eat veggies and other fresh goodies for the first week and meat-and-potatoes and pasta for the second week (I don’t mind really, I’m German with a taste for anything Italian, soooo… I am a real authentic Deutscher!) Some day my dreams will come true and I will live blocks from a grocery store so I can shop, cook, and eat Euro-style: bi-weekly to daily groceries in small batches.
Alas… that day has yet to arrive so I tend to be more of a slave to the schedules of the lucky few with cars who always have a warm seat for me on their grocery runs. But as I mentioned earlier, this is the Start of a New Semester (!), which means of course that no one has groceries and my shopping options expand ten-fold. This past weekend I hitched rides to Hannaford’s (the local supermarket), Costco (the local gallon-o-mustard depot) and my favorite and least-often visited Trader Joe’s (cue the Hallelujah chorus).
If I had my way I would buy large quantities of certain oatmeal, snack, and granola bar products at Costco twice a semester and split my time lovingly between the two other stores twice a month, buying fruit, veggies and meat at Hanni’s and everything else, all pre-made food, cheeses, sweets and salts (chips/crackers) at TJ’s. However, Trader Joe’s is a bit far from us so it is a rare and highly valued visit.
Because of my tri-fecta of grocery store visits this weekend, I am happy as a clam, with lots of tasty meal choices that I will expand upon in the coming days. I am very excited about two items I bought at TJ’s: Butternut Squash and Apple Soup (perfect winter flavors) and Chicken Links with Sweet Apple and Vermont Maple Syrup. I have spent most of the day daydreaming about what I could cook for dinner and looking for a fun way to combine these two items into a tasty and creative meal. Seeing as the links had a slight breakfasty flavor to them, I thought that savory crepes stuffed with a nice sausage/onion/mushroom sauté would be the way to go.
Crepes are always a scary endeavor because they are very fancy sounding, but they are shockingly simple as long as you pay attention to what you are doing. I found an easy savory crepe recipe (versus the more common dessert variety that has sugar in it) on Epicurious.com, one of my favorite recipe web-sites. I got about 11 crepes out of the recipe but that depends on how thick you make them (aim thin) and the size of your pan (mine was about 7 inches).

One in the pan, 9 on the plate... this is just before the flip.

One in the pan, 9 on the plate... this is just before the flip.

For the filling, I browned a small clove of minced garlic in a pan while I put a small dice on 1.5 small onions, 2 large cremini mushrooms, and one Chicken/Apple/Maple Link. Each went into the pan in turn. I then sautéed the whole bit adding a splash of what I call Ginger Water (the liquid that comes in the large jars of Japanese pickled ginger, always handy for a bit of a punch). I added some of the Butternut Squash Apple soup (about two tablespoons) at the end to bind it together, and turned the heat to low.

Sorry it looked too delicious, I couldn't wait to dig in before snapping a shot of the filling in the pan.

Sorry it looked too delicious, I couldn't wait to dig in before snapping a shot of the filling in the pan.

To put it all together I spread a bit of cream cheese on each crepe and rolled a few spoonfuls of the filling up in cigar-like rolls, tucking the loose end under the roll so it stayed in place.

Four filled crepes made a very satisfying meal paired with a small bowl of the Butternut Squash Apple soup on the side. The whole thing was delicious if not slightly two sweet. I think substituting goat cheese for the cream cheese would have given it the right amount of salt without me having to physically add pure sodium, which I avoid as much as possible.
Kudos goes to Trader Joe’s for their never-fail-delicious food.  I may have to set up camp in their parking lot so I can buy food there more often. It would definitely be worth it.

To sum up…
1.    Temperatures in the teens call for warming foods like Butternut Squash soup and sausage. (You know you’re cold…. Time for soup!)
2.    Crepes are not as scary as they seem. Go for it!
3.     It’s going to be a great semester. I can just taste it.

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