It Feels Good to Be Home...

Cooking with my mom usually leads to two things- delicious food and a fight. For some reason, we never seem to make it through an entire dish without getting into some sort of argument. Whether its about how much salt to add to boiling water or how big to cut the holes in cupcakes for filling, we always seem to have differing opinions.

We've been talking about making cream puffs for about a year now, and we finally got around to it last night. The traditional dough- pâte de chaussures, or shoe paste, is used for not only cream puffs but also eclairs, mini tea sandwiches, or really anything sandwich- or filling-related you want because they are very flavor neutral, light and airy.

Then came the fight- when I wanted to make them about the size of a ping pong ball and my mom wanted to make them the size of a marble, convinced they were going to puff up like a blowfish. I also added the egg yolk straight into the hot pot, which immediately began to cook, thus ruining the texture of my cream puffs. Needless to say, the first batch was ping pong ball sized but crunchy and eggy. The second time around we did it the right way, still ping pong ball sized, but we tempered the eggs and added some sugar. The puffs came out light, fluffy and perfect. I also made chocolate eclairs, as a photo friendly alternative.

Eclair/ Cream Puff Recipe

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup flour

1 tbs sugar

2 eggs

1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 tbs milk

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Heat water and butter to rolling boil in sauce pan. Stir in sugar and flour over low heat until mixture forms a ball. Remove from heat. Beat eggs in a separate bowl. Add a little bit of the flour mixture at a time to the eggs, slowly rising the heat of the eggs. Beat until smooth. Drop dough by tablespoonfuls or use a piping bag and pipe either ping pong sized balls or 2 inch logs of dough onto ungreased cookie sheet, about 3 inches apart. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until golden. Cool. Cut off tops. fill with cream filling and replace top. Combine chocolate chips and milk in a small saucepan. Over medium heat. Stir and melt until the mixture is smooth. Drizzle chocolate over tops of puffs.

Filling Recipe

1/3 cup sugar

2 tbs cornstarch

1/8 tsp salt

2 cups milk

2 egg yolks, slightly beaten

2 tbs butter

1 tbs vanilla

Heat sugar, cornstarch and salt in a saucepan. Stir in milk gradually. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly until mixture thickens and boils. Boil and stir one minute. Stir half the hot mixture gradually into eggs. Blend back into the rest of the hot mixture. Return to heat and boil and stir one minute. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Cover with plastic wrap, so the plastic is touching the custard. This will prevent the custard from forming a film as it cools. Place in refrigerator and cool for about 30 minutes.

'Tis The Season

I love spring. I love spring weather, spring clothing, and most of all, spring produce!!! There's just something about freshly picked produce in the spring that you can't get any other time of the year. As an homage to spring produce, Sweet Green introduced their May salad- a combination of romaine and arugula lettuces, fresh strawberries and asparagus, feta cheese, sunflower seeds and chicken, topped with a homemade balsamic vinaigrette, served with a thick and crunchy piece of the best bread I have ever tasted. Seriously.

Now that I am home for a month I have had a decent amount of time to cook again! Love. I wanted to recreate the Sweet Green salad for a light dinner and show my mom why I'm so obsessed with the place. I did everything the same except I cooked the asparagus, marinated the chicken, and made a homemade strawberry balsamic vinaigrette with a strawberry balsamic vinegar I picked up in Savannah, Georgia. Please, please, enjoy this recipe. I would eat this salad every day if I could.

Makes 4 Dinner- Sized Salads

chicken

2 boneless skinless chicken breasts- sliced into tenders

1 tsp each of salt, pepper and dried parsley

1 tbs olive oil

zest and juice of 1 lemon

salad

1/2 bag (about 4 cups) each of romaine and arugula lettuce

1 cup sliced strawberries

1 cup chopped asparagus

salt pepper and olive oil

1/2 cup feta cheese

1/4 cup sunflower seeds

vinaigrette

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tbs strawberry (or regular) balsamic vinegar

zest of 1/2 lemon

salt and pepper

Marinate the chicken tenders in the olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley, and lemon juice and zest for about 5 minutes. Over medium heat, cook the chicken in a pan, about 4 minutes per side. Remove from heat.

Toss the lettuce, feta and sunflower seeds in a large bowl.

Toss the asparagus in salt pepper and olive oil, just enough to coat. Using the same pan from the chicken, cook the asparagus over medium-high heat until tender but still crunchy, about 7 minutes. Remove from heat.

Once cool, add the chicken and asparagus to the salad. Add strawberries.

In a separate bowl, combine the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Toss over salad and serve with fresh multigrain bread (for the true Sweet Green experience!). Enjoy!