Monique's FAVORITE dessert

I may be a day late on this, but Aimee had the idea of linking bloggers together to run simultaneous posts on the same topic. Her Tuesday Linky Feature is your favorite dessert.

You guys already know of my self-proclaimed love for crêpes (I am French afterall). Since some of you haven't had them before, I thought it'd be fun to post a step-by-step recipe of how to make them! If you try it, PLEASE LET ME KNOW what you think!!!

But you can't eat your dessert until you've had your dinner. At least, that's what my mom always told me. So I guess I'll follow her advice this one time.....

When I came back from work I planned on going for a run before taking the dog to his puppy training class. But he's still showing minor signs of sickness so we opted to hold him back, especially since he'll miss the next two classes when we're at the College World Series. Currently we're trying to get him into another class since he's already missed so many from being sick. Anyways, pre-run I was STARVING and tried my very first PURE bar along with some frozen grapes, an excellent treat in hot weather.

As someone who used to eat Lära Bars -- which I grew a massive distaste for -- I was very pleased with this bar! It didn't taste like cardboard for starters, which is always a good thing. But it was the only one I bought, so I might have to go back to Trader Joe's and purchase some other flavors.

I ended up skipping the run to make dinner, thinking I'd run when the weather fell below 80 in the evening. More on that later. After having Indian food last night, Mexican earlier this week and pasta before that, I was in the mood for some seafood! We have a Costco-sized bag of pre-cooked frozen shrimp in the freezer and a shrimp salad sounded mighty tempting to me. I Googled different shrimp salads and decided on making my own variation of several different tropical shrimp salad recipes.

While I chopped up some carrots, one "fell off my cutting board" and look who snatched it up

So now back to the salad. I started off with five shrimpies and marinated them in chimichurri sauce before grilling them up on my new grill pan!

Then here's what went into the Tropical Lime Shrimp Salad:

• Chimichurri-marinated shrimp
• Mixed salad greens
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Cucumber
• Red onion
• Avocado
• Pineapple
• Mandarin oranges (canned)
• Cilantro
• Red peppers

And then I made my own similarly-flavored dressing which consisted of:

• Fresh-squeezed lime juice
• Mandarin syrup from the can
• Orange juice
• Olive oil
• Balsamic vinegar
• Cilantro

And there you have it! A very refreshing and light, yet filling, summer salad. I think it would be fun to throw in some edamame or yellow/white corn next time. Maybe even a little rice or quinoa would be fun too. But I skimped on the grains because I had a good amount of bread to go with my salad.

And also, I was saving room for tonight's DESSERT. Before we get started, get a load of my new apron:

Glad you finally made it to this part of the post. You're going to have to wait a bit longer though. What a trooper you are! You must really like me ;) ... or not? So I started making my crêpes thinking I'd run before eating one. But then I got lazy again, sheesh. So blogworld, you're now charged with holding me accountable. I am waking up early to go for a long run tomorrow. If I admit to skipping another workout in my next blog entry, you've got my permission to admonish/make fun of me!! Please do, I need the kick in the pants to work out when it's this hot and I don't have an air conditioned gym membership.

So now, DESSERT! Here's my go-to crêpes recipe:

• 2 eggs
• 1/2 c milk
• 1/2 c water
• 1 c flour
• 1 T sugar
• 1/4 t salt
• 2 T melted butter

There really isn't a special order or specific way I like doing this. Just mix everything together in a huge bowl. Now here's a preface to this recipe: I've made crêpes THOUSANDS of times in my life, but tonight thought I'd try to "healthify" them. Um, bad call. Crêpes need fat and light flour to work properly.

All I have in my fridge currently is soy milk. I don't think I'll ever do that again. The consistency was weird and I had to add more milk to the batter in its later stages. It's supposed to be fairly runny and not uber thick. I also tried to use some ground flax seed and wheat flour. Bleached flour is much less dense and helps contribute to that runny consistency. And really, if you're going to cook French, you might as well go all in. You saw Julie and Julia, right?! Use that butter and milk, people!!!

So while you're mixing away, turn on a burner and start warming the flatest pan you have on medium heat. Lucky for you guys, I actually have a crêpe pan. Crazy, right?! Take a paper towel, rub it in some butter and then smear that stuff all over your pan to make it really non-stick (do this EVEN if you have a non-stick pan, it's essential for crêpe-making).

Your first crêpe will be a disaster. It takes a while to get the technique and thickness (or lack thereof) down. What you want is a small spoonful of mix in the center of your pan. Quickly rock the pan back and forth until the mix covers all the surface area, unless you've used super heavy wheat flour and it won't cooperate.

Notice how I've literally picked the pan up and turned it perpendicular to the stove. Then put it back on your burner and let it go for a few minutes. You can check under part of it, looking for small brown patches of color. That's how you know it's ready. The first couple won't do this, so make a few practice runs before you get to this point. Then, let 'er flip!

Once both sides are moderately browned, do it all over again! About every three-to-four crêpes you make, you'll have to butter the pan all over again.

And now here's the fun part! TOPPINGS! Basically, anything goes. But if you want to be really French, you have some options. The easiest one is just sprinkling a bit of sugar on top and eating while warm. My personal favorite, however, is the combination of Nutella and fresh fruit. Another classic French pairing is the Poire Belle-Hélène which consists of vanilla ice cream, pear and caramel sauce.

I, of course, went for the Nutella.

Once you've decided on your toppings, adequately fill your open crêpe with your goodies. Then fold it in half and put a bit more on top! I went with Nutella, nonfat Greek yogurt and frozen berries. When I heated up the berries in the microwave, they made their own little juicy syrup that turned out great for drizzling on top of my dessert. See??

Voilà, you're done! But before you enjoy, make sure you don't leave your plate unattended for little puppies to sneak a taste. I would, Woodstock, but you know, it has chocolate on it. And sorry, but puppies can't have chocolate. More for me anyhow :)

What's your favorite dessert? Are you ridiculous like I am and want a dessert after every meal? Oh really, I don't either then.....

Poire Belle-Helene