Bite into a berry blintze for a taste bonanza

(Blintzes are filled with sweetened cheese and topped with mixed berry sauce)

Crepes creeped into my subconscious the other night.

Recipes have a way of doing that.
Berries were part of the equation, so I turned to The Culinary Institute of America's "Breakfasts & Brunches" (Lebhar-Friedman Books, 2005) for a little inspiration. This is a great cookbook for not only breakfast dishes, but lunches, desserts, breads and more. It's ripe with inspiration.

I love making crepes, especially for one of my favorite Italian meals, manicotti. I thought I could modify that crepe recipe, make a sweet cheese filling and top it with a berry sauce or fresh berries for a delicious dessert or brunch.
Flipping through the pages of the CIA's stellar book, I was smitten with all the recipes for crepes, blintzes and blinis — oh, my!
I settled on Cheese Blintzes with Mixed Berry Sauce, adapting it for the ingredients I had at hand. The recipe calls for a combination of farmer, ricotta and cream cheese, but all I had was cottage and cream cheese, which worked out just fine. I imagine it would be great with mascarpone as well. How could you lose?

Here's a little garden interlude about berries, before I get to the recipe:



I still have bags of blueberries in the freezer which I wanted to use, pairing them with fresh strawberries. I've picked a few handfuls of my garden strawberries, but they never made it to the kitchen! The garden berries were the sweetest I have ever tasted - such gems.



These are the little alpine strawberries my neighbor gave me last year. They explode in the mouth with sweetness and flavor.



To conserve space in the garden, I planted the strawberries in the middle of my garlic patch, figuring by time the garlic was ready to pull, the strawberries would be peaking. I'm not so sure that was a great idea, because the garlic, which is now sending out its beautiful scapes, is towering over the berry plants, shading them a bit. The strawberries are sending out their runners, finding it a bit tough to set roots in the thick straw, but that's how it goes sometimes with companion planting. These guys are having a veritable party in the bed! I think they will turn out OK, though, as the strawberry plants are looking good.



This is a white strawberry plant a colleague at work gave me. She brought a cutting back from Lincoln, Nebraska, years ago when she worked with a master gardener out there. They are sweet and succulent, and the birds don't seem to notice them because they are not red, she said. This is the first year for this little sweetie in my garden, and I've only gotten about five ripe berries so far, so I'm way ahead of the birds!



Because the fresh berries never made it out of the garden, I bought some beautiful strawberries at the Poughkeepsie Farmers Market on Friday. The good folks at Three Sisters Farm had just picked them that morning. You've got to love the local markets!

Try this recipe if you want to present a unique dish for family or guests, or if you just want to pamper yourself. It's easy and quick to make. I used only half of the crepes (about 1 dozen) and put the rest in the freezer, sandwiched between layers of wax paper.
The finished crepes would freeze well too, without the sauce, but they never made it to the freezer!

(These babies are great without the sauce, too)

Cheese Blintzes with Mixed Berry Sauce

For the crepes:

(I can't bear to part with this old Revere Ware skillet that was part of a set my Mom got as a wedding present. It works perfectly for making crepes.)

1. 2 cups white flour (you could mix a bit of wheat in, if you'd like)
2. 2 tablespoons sugar
3. Pinch of salt
4. 2 cups milk
5. 2 large eggs
6. 1 tablespoon melted butter
7. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
8. Dash of cinnamon
   

• Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and cinnamon.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the milk, eggs, melted butter and vanilla.
• Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and whisk in the liquids.
• Mix well, making sure they are no lumps.
• Cover; place in the refrigerator for at least an hour to rest while you prepare the cheese filling and berry sauce.
  

After an hour or so, remove the batter from the fridge and heat up a small skillet to make the crepes. Season the pan with butter in between a few of the crepes to prevent them from sticking.
Once you get going, this process is a breeze.

Tilt the pan and swirl the batter around to make a nice, thin crepe.

When you see the edges of the crepe start to furl a bit, flip it over and let brown briefly on the other side. Don't be afraid to stack your crepes on a plate as you make them; they won't stick together.

For the berry sauce:

Use a mixture of any fresh or frozen berries. I used fresh strawberries and frozen blueberries.

1. 1 cup strawberries
2. 1 cup blueberries
3. 1/3 cup sugar
4. 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
5. 1 shot of courvoisier or rum or any other liqueur, or not
   

• Set aside a few of the berries.
• Put the rest in the pan with the sugar and lemon and bring to a simmer.
• Heat until the sugar dissolves.
• Add the liqueur.
• Mix; taste to see if it needs a bit more sugar.
• Let simmer for a total of 10 minutes or so; remove from heat.
• Toss in the uncooked fruit; set the sauce aside.

For the cheese filling:

1. 4 ounces cream cheese
2. 8 ounces cottage cheese or ricotta
3. 3-4 tablespoons sugar
4. 1 egg
5. Pinch of salt
6. 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
   

• Beat together the cheeses, sugar, salt and vanilla until creamy.
• Whisk in the egg.

To assemble:

• Spoon about 2 tablespoons of the cheese mixture on the lower bottom third of a crepe. Fold the bottom over, then fold each of the remaining sides over to form a neat little package.
• Assemble the rest of the crepes.
• In a large skillet, melt a tablespoon of butter over medium heat.
• Arrange six blintzes, seam-side down, in the pan and saute until lightly browned and a bit crisp, about 2 minutes. Turn the blintzes over and brown the other side.

Serve with a heaping helping of berry sauce and a dusting of confectioner's sugar, if desired.