Saturday, July 4th - Okanagan Grill Fest continued

Our friend's are so funny. P brought is own crepe pan with him on our Okanagan roadtrip along with his own flour and butter. P used a recipe that he got from a french canadian friend. I don't have his recipe with me but from what I recall, it was not disimilar from our recipe but he used all water instead of milk. I'll normally add some water to thin it out and I've made them with just water in the past in a pinch when I didn't have milk. I learned that trick from an ex from Quebec as well. For them to turn out best, try to have the batter slightly thicker than milk.

Crepes

2 c Flour
1/2 t salt
2T sugar (opt)
2 1/4 c Water
4 eggs

Whisk the wets together with the salt. Add the flour and whisk smooth. If you have some time, let it rest. You might have to add slight more water if you do as well because the flour will absorb the liquid.

Butter the pan on medium heat. Pour 1 ladle into the pan and swirl as if it were on a tilt-a-whirl so it spreads out in the pan. When you're able to freely shimmy it around the pan, pick the edge up slightly and see if it's barely golden.

Now you can do one of two things here. D and I stack all the finished crepe and fill at the table. P was filling them in the pan as they do in the crepe kiosks.

Choice of fillings were: Chopped fresh berries, cheese, cold cuts, maple syrup, chocolate hazelnut spread.

YUM

We stopped at Burrowing Owl for lunch. The food looked great but I passed since they didn't have anything me friendly on the menu that was light enough yet not a salad. I did not want 20 salad. I'm still trying to shed those extra few stress pounds. I tried to order the Chioppino because it sounded awesome but it came with chorizo and chicken broth. Strange. Chioppino is normally made from lobster broth. D had the Charcuterie plate. It looked quite tasty and I snatched some of his olives. One of my friends ordered the Chioppino and it did look quite good but one of the 'assembled to order' kind instead of the hearty stew that it originate from. What was particularly odd about this restaurant was that it was part of the Burrowing Owl winery but their own wine was marked up double on the menu. WTF?

All day long we stopped at variety of market stalls and bought fresh veg and then stopped at the supermarket in Oliver to buy protein. They have an IGA. The seafood selection was VERY disappointing. Any competition would do well to offer even a slightly better selection.

Dinner was another Grill fest. The BBQ at the rental house was rather small and didn't have a second shelf for resting or veg and the house didn't come with a BBQ basket. So we had to make some compromises on the asparagus and potatoes.:

New Potatoes with garlic and butter in foil packets.
Grilled scallions, washed trimmed, tossed in olive oil and placed directly on the grill.
Baby greens with fresh cukes and heirloom tomatoes
Asparagus tossed in oil and foil packed.

For protein, D and I grilled Tuna steaks. I marinated mine in some Diane's BBQ sauce and D used some Sesame salad dressing we used on the green salad.

There were steaks and prawn skewers as well.

We drank a Blue Mountain Gamay from E, Township 7 Rose from D and Poplar Grove Chardonnay from me. Another Hillside Estate CabFranc, this one was P's. Pretty much all the wine we drank and dinner was either E&P's or D&me.

For dessert, we had a farmer's market pie with some Elephant Island Framboise from DJ. The pie was so fresh. Ymmmmm