Savory Avocado Cream Puffs

Behold the next level of party snacks! The Savory Avocado Cream Puff stuffed with avocado cream cheese and topped with smoked peanuts and radish sprouts! These creamy puffs of perfection are what party snacks should be. They're filling, but still surprisingly light. Even your vegetarian friends will like them, because unlike most of my dishes these contain no meat! I know! I'm as surprised as you are. Even though I made these look fancy, I recommend taking a page out of The Oatmeal's book and drench these things in Sriracha.

I don't have much to say about these puffs, besides the fact that you need to make them for the next party you attend or throw. I'm just going to let these photos that Katy Weaver took do most of the speaking. 

Savory Avocado Cream Puffs

I've decided not to include a traditional recipe on this post. This dish is basically built out of three parts, the choux paste, avocado cream cheese, and the peanuts.

Choux Paste (The Puffs)

Honestly The Joy of Cooking has an amazing recipe that I used to make the puffs. If you don't have a copy of The Joy of Cooking then get off the internet and stop reading "12 easy crockpot recipes" on Pinterest and get yourself a real cookbook.  You'll thank yourself. 

Whipped Avocado Cream Cheese

In a large mixing bowl whip together a diced avocado, a thing of cream cheese, 1 tablespoon of lime juice, and 1 tablespoon of whole milk until it becomes fluffy. Be sure the avocado becomes fully incorporated. Thats it. Simple.

Smoked Peanuts

I used my charcoal grill and some mesquite wood chips to smoke my peanuts. Then I used a coffee grinder to make a peanut dust, I also stirred in some paprika and cayenne pepper to give it some heat. After these three steps I just assembled the puffs and impressed my friends. 

Palak White Cheddar Pastries

Planning on throwing a party sometime soon? If you are then I suggest making these appetizers. If you're not then you can make them alone and contemplate why you're not invited to more dinner parties.

Tillamook dairy was kind enough to send me some of their delicious cheese. If you've never had Tillamook cheese before it makes store brand cheese seem like some sort of cheap rubber substitute they used in WWII. The sharpness of the white cheddar cuts right through the spinach and Indian spices, but doesn't overpower them. The pastry, spinach, cheese and spices seem to form a team that works extremely well together, much like the "A Team," but for copyright reasons let's say "An a Team."

Palak White Cheddar Pastries

Yields 18 pastries

• 2 bags of packaged Spinach chopped
• 1/4 cup Water
• 1/2 Lemon juiced
• 2 Tomatoes diced
• 1 Large Onion diced
• 4 cloves Garlic diced
• 1 teaspoon Olive Oil
• 1/2 teaspoon Ginger ground
• 1/2 teaspoon Coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon Sea Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Cinnamon
• 2 teaspoon Garam Masala
• 1 Tablespoon Greek Yogurt
• 8 oz. Tillamook Vintage White Cheddar cubed
• 1 Egg whisked
• 1 package (9 x 9.5 in) Puff Pastry* thawed

1. Preheat the oven to 400°. Add the spinach, water, and lemon juice to a medium-sized sauce pan, cover and heat over medium heat until all the leaves have wilted down.
2. While the spinach is cooking, add the onions, garlic, and olive oil to a large skillet and cook over medium heat until the onions have slightly caramelized. Add the spices to the onions. After cooking for 3-5 minutes stir in the tomatoes and yogurt. Cook for another 5 minutes. Add the onion and tomato mixture to the spinach. Let simmer for yet another 5 minutes.
3. Use a food processor to blend until you get the consistency of chunky peanut butter.
4. Cut the pastries into 1 x 1 inch squares. place evenly on a greased cookie sheet with parchment paper. Place two cheese cubes at the center of each pastry square. Scoop 1 Teaspoon of the spinach on top of each square.
5. Pinch two opposite edges of the square together, as pictured below. Brush each folded pastry with the whisked egg. Bake at 400° until golden brown, which should be about 15 minutes.
6. Serve with rice and enjoy!

*Yes, I use store-bought puff pastry. In the words of the greatest poet of our generation, "ain't no one got time for that."

Coconut Lime Basmati Rice

• 1 cup Basmati Rice
• 1 can Coconut Milk
• 1 Lime zested

1. Rinse the rice 3 times. Add everything to a rice cooker. Wait about 20 minutes. Boom you're done.

Katy Weaver once again out doing herself with some outstanding photography.

Yam Hash Browns

When given the chance to choose between regular ol' potatoes and yams, I'm going to yam it up. Yams are probably my favorite tuber, that is if I had to pick just one. As anyone who follows this blog knows that I love breakfast food, but to be honest I've never been a huge hash brown fan, whenever I eat them I always feel like something was missing. I discovered that the sweetness of the yams works well with the onions and to complete the full flavor of the dish I topped it with hot sauce and goat cheese. 

Yam Hash Browns

• 2 large red yams peeled and grated
• 1/4 cup of diced onions
• olive oil
• crumbled goat cheese
• Hot sauce (I use Sriracha)
• Sliced green onions
• Salt & pepper to taste

1. Peel the skin off the yams. 
2. Grate the yams into a large mixing bowl. Once the yams have been reduced to pieces, squeeze out as much of the juice you can. I'd recommend doing this over the sink. Also, you're hands might be stained orange after you do this, (regular hand soap removes the yam caused jaundice).
3. Mix in the diced onions with the bowl of yam shreds, add salt and pepper to taste. 
4. Find a large skillet somewhere in your kitchen, I don't know where you keep yours. Add enough olive oil to make a layer about 2 cm deep, and heat over medium high heat. 
5. I usually make two hash browns at a time. I make two hash brown shaped, well hash browns in the pan. Let the first side cook for about 5 minutes then flip and let the other side cook for another 5 minutes. DO NOT put the cooked hash browns on paper towels, they'll stick to the fibers in the paper and it'll just turn into a mess. I recommend using a wire cooling rack. 
6. To finish the dish, plate the hash browns and top with crumbled goat cheese, green onions, and hot sauce. Enjoy!

This is just the appetizer, more posts coming later this week!

All photos taken by Katy Weaver (I would highly recommend checking out her awesome newly redesigned website!)