Wild Rice Crêpes with Chickpeas, Mushrooms and Spinach topped with a Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce

Well, only one for me as they turned out a lot bigger than I anticipated!

For bigger appetites perhaps....

These crêpes were featured in the 2007 Canadian Living Holiday Baking magazine. I know, I use these A LOT, I'm pretty much going through them and veganizing everything ;) Anyway, they were traditional crêpes (not vegan) and stuffed with chicken and mushrooms. I was going to convert the filling but still have not found any vegan chicken style pieces that I'm happy with. It otherwise sounded lovely, using cream cheese and porcini mushrooms - all easy to make vegan. I ended up thinking too much about what kind of filling to use and ended up using what I had in the fridge - it turned out delicious!

For the crêpes I followed the savoury crepe recipe from vegan brunch adding the wild rice step from the magazine. The sauce recipe also comes from the magazine and was very nice, went beautifully with this although I could also see a vegan white wine cream sauce going nicely as well. Quite simply loads of possibilities here, but I loved this one!

Wild Rice Crêpes:

90g wild rice, raw weight

350ml rice milk

60ml water

120g plain flour

30g chickpea flour

1 Tbsp arrowroot

1/2 tsp fine sea salt

olive oil to coat pan

First cook the rice. Place 500ml of water, 1/2 tsp salt (extra) and the rice in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer with the lid on for 45 - 50 minutes, or until the grains have popped and are tender. Drain any excess water and rinse under cold water. Leave aside to fully cool.

For the crêpes, add everything into a blender and blend well. Place in the fridge for at least an hour. When ready give it another whisk then add the wild rice. Heat a non stick crêpe pan and brush on some olive oil, when ready pour in about 1/2 cup of the batter - make sure you stir it around with the measuring spoon as the rice will sink to the bottom. Pour onto the hot pan and swirl it around. My crêpe pan is quite large and I got 5 out of this recipe - only 3 were usable, the first 2 simply practise runs! I found it easiest to loosen them from the pan, slide them onto a plate, brush the pan with a bit more oil and then pick up the crêpe and place it uncooked side down to finish cooking. When done on the other side, slide onto baking paper and continue cooking the crêpes, layering each one with baking paper.

Chickpea, Mushroom and Spinach Filling:

1 red onion, cut in half and sliced thinly

2 cloves garlic, minced

160g mushrooms, sliced

40g spinach, sliced thinly

100g tinned chickpeas, drained and rinsed

1/2 Tbsp olive oil

1/8 tsp fine sea salt

freshly ground black pepper

First a note - this recipe filled the 3 crêpes I had that turned out. If you make all 5 crepes - first of all - well done! Second, you may want to double this. Heat the olive oil in a wok then add the mushrooms, onions and salt and pepper, when they start to lightly brown add the chickpeas and garlic and stir well. When it's all heated and cooked stir in the spinach until just wilted - you may have to add a splash of water.

Roasted Red Pepper Tomato Sauce:

1/2 red onion, chopped

2 red peppers, roasted

1 can (400g) plum tomatoes in juice

2 fat cloves garlic, minced

pinch of red chili flakes

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 tsp balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp fine sea salt

First roast the peppers, I use a 'quick' roast method from another cookbook. Remove the core, seeds and membranes from the peppers then slice each one into thirds. Place on an ungreased baking sheet, cut side down and grill for about 5 - 10 minutes, until they are charred. Place into a bag, or into a bowl covered with cling film for 15 minutes. The skins should just peel off now - discard the skins and roughly chop the peppers.

Place the tomatoes, peppers, onion, garlic and chili flakes into a blender and blend till smooth. Pour this into a saucepan and add the olive oil, salt and vinegar. Bring to the boil then partly cover and simmer until reduced to 500ml, about an hour. Yeah, I couldn't eyeball 500ml either and to be honest am not sure how long I cooked mine, I just had it simmering away while I made the crepes. It was nice and thick and flavourful when done anyway!

When ready, you can re-heat the crepes in the microwave if they have cooled too much, about 20 seconds is enough. Fill in the middle with some of the filing, fold the ends over and roll up. Top with a generous portion of sauce. Now I know just one crepe looks a little skimpy but that did turn out to be 394 calories so a perfectly fine meal. Again, my crêpe pan is large, so a smaller pan will make more reasonable sized crêpes.

♥

Sources: Crêpe is from Vegan Brunch with added step of wild rice from Canadian Living Magazine 2007 Holiday Baking Edition - original non-vegan recipe is here .

Red Pepper Sauce also from Canadian Living Magazine 2007 Holiday Baking Edition here .