Brunch in Clayton

For brunch, I had a crepe-elette, with coffee to drink.



What on earth is a crepe-elette? Awesomeness.

I'd held off on visiting First Watch, they of the crepe-elettes, because their website looked too damned cheerful, and because their menu is very egg-heavy (I hate eggs).

In fact, I discovered today that their restaurant is too damned cheerful for me, regardless of my state of caffeination- bright colors, airy high ceilings, and cutesey food names. For example, the special I ordered this morning was actually the "Hamma-lama-ding-dong" or some such. Not kidding. And I actually made up the term "crepe-elette" because, although it reminds me of epaulets, it sounds much better than their trademarked term "crepeggs". First Watch reminds me of Le Peep, with better food and worse decor.

In any case, my crepe-elette was amazing- crepe, filled with scrambled eggs, mushrooms, diced ham, asparagus, and tomato, and covered with Hollandaise sauce. The crepe cut the egginess, the veggies were all super-fresh and properly cooked. Even the diced ham (which scares me, and I have never, ever, ever eaten before), although salty, was the perfect flavor to balance everything.

Their sides of breakfast potatoes and English muffin were good, although they lacked grape jelly (in favor of blackberry, of all things). The coffee was also good enough, but had a weird cinnamon undertone that was either a bad attempt at flavored coffee beans, or burnt beans.

My meal was delicious enough that I would brave the unfortunate decorating choices and cheesy menu names again.

In other news, I spent the rest of the morning making pie shells.



Dinner tonight is my aunt's amazing spinach quiche recipe. Hers uses extra cheese, fewer eggs, and drained frozen spinach so it turns out firm rather than watery. It also freezes well for lunches, and is healthy compared to traditional French quiche- no cream here. Usually, I just pour the quiche batter into prepared pie shells, but TJ's prepared pie shells were as ridiculously unhealthy as the pecan-and-cheese-based shell she sometimes uses, so I decided to go for the tasty homemade original.

I ended up with some extra crust material, but only have one pie plate, so made some savory mini-shells.



Usually I'm not a recipe poster, but it's really good.

Auntie Ann's Spinach Quiche

pie shell
2c. shredded cheese (mozzarella is best)
2tbs. flour
10 oz. frozen spinach, thawed, drained, and squeezed. Get all the water out!
1c. milk
2 beaten eggs
salt and pepper

Toss the cheese and flour, mix everything together well, pour into 9" pie crust, and bake for one hour at 350.

The Unhealthy Crust

1c. flour
1c. shredded sharp cheddar (I actually modified this and used mozz and parmesan)
3/4c pecans, chopped
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp paprika
1/3c vegetable oil

Mix everything, stir well, press firmly into 9" pie plate (either my pie plate is small, or this recipe is giant).

Bake at 350 for 12 minutes, cool completely before filling.

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Edit:
here's the finished quiche, along with a glass of my finished cider. The cider is not quite as awesome as I was led to believe, but it's not a bad start.