Yve Eats: Avocado Corn Salad + Baked Churros

Join us as we progress in our cooking chronicles (that would've been a nice name for this series of blog posts) and venture away from the continent of Europe and take something a little closer to home. Mikaela and I decided on Mexico as our theme country for this meal and we included the caveat of having minimal cheese. The biggest challenge was finding a recipe we could make on short notice that fulfilled our requirements but no challenge is impossible.

The final taco bar!

There are only two items in the title, but we actually prepared three things for this meal. The brainstorming for this meal was such a process. It reminded me of writing analytical essays for class. You start with this great idea but then you start thinking about it, you start finding problems. By the time we found a recipe we liked, it was so late in the game, we had to work around the fact that we had chosen a side dish. The natural course of action at this point is to supplement with the easiest possible entree. Why fight nature, right? When I brought this dilemma to my mom, she suggested a taco bar. Customizable and requires the bare minimum in terms of prep. For the meat we went with ground turkey again and added a can of kidney beans for a little extra protein. We kept the rest of it simple with some yellow corn tortillas, sliced avocados, pico di gallo, sour cream, Mexican cheese, and some cilantro.

Piping the churros.

The element of the original brainstorming session that survived to the final product was the churros. Churros are traditionally fried but that is not something we want to deal with. The smell and grease that sticks to everything? Plus the dangers of hot oil in general? You're gonna have a tough time trying to convince me to deep fry anything. In a compromise, we found a recipe for baked churros. Of course it isn't very authentic (the dough is essentially a recipe for eclair dough) but it's much healthier. It didn't end up tasting like a churro; it was more along the lines of a cinnamon sugar eclair, as you can imagine. That being said, they were very easy to make. Piping was its own issue. We didn't have a proper star tip to make churros so we bought one that we could make do with. The churro shape didn't turn out perfectly but it was close enough. The final product was quite fragile so it was a smart call in making them mini sized.

A culmination of faves.

The recipe we referenced for the Avocado Corn Salad had Cotija cheese but suggested feta as a substitute, which was good for us because the only Cotija cheese we could find was not crumbled and also 10 oz. What was I supposed to do with the seven leftover ounces?! That was the biggest change we made to the recipe. The other tiny thing we altered was the amount of avocado we put in the salad. You can never have too much of a good thing, especially if that "good thing" is avocado. We used 3 tablespoons of mayonnaise in the salad but I honestly think we couldn't gotten away with 2 tablespoons or maybe even less. That's just because my family is not a fan of mayonnaise or anything that seems excessively fatty. I have no bad things to say about this recipe, though. The corn was sweet and all the flavors complemented each other. I think we could've done with a little more chili powder but that's all up to personal taste.

Here are the recipes with my revisions:

Avocado Corn Salad 

The main events (x)

Serves: about 5 people

Ingredients: 

4 ears fresh corn, husked and kernels cut from the cob

1 1/2  Tbsp vegetable oil

1/3 cup chopped red onion, chopped, run under water and drain to remove harsh bite)

1/3 cup slightly packed cilantro leaves, chopped

1 jalapeno pepper, stemmed, seeded, and minced

1 clove garlic, minced

3 oz feta cheese, finely crumbled 

3 Tbsp mayonnaise 

1 1/2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1/2 tsp chili powder, then more to taste

2 large avocados (semi-firm but ripe) peeled, cored, and diced

Instructions:

1. Heat vegetable oil in a large skillet. Add corn, season with salt to taste and toss, then let cook, tossing only occasionally until corn has browned a little. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly.
2. Add corn to a medium bowl along with onions, cilantro, jalapeno, garlic, 3/4 of the feta, mayonnaise, lime juice, chili powder, and avocados, then toss. Garnish with additional chili powder, the remaining feta, and a sprig of cilantro. 

Baked Churros

A plate full of "churros"

Ingredients:

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup water

1 cup all purpose flour

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup cinnamon sugar

cooking spray 

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
2. In a medium saucepan combine the butter, salt, and water. Bring to a boil over medium high heat.
3. Remove from heat, add flour, and stir with a spoon to combine. Mixture will thicken and start to resemble the texture of mashed potatoes.
4. Move dough to a mixer and beat on low, adding one egg at a time, mixing well before adding another.
5. When all the eggs are combined, add the vanilla. The dough will be thick and starchy.
6.  Spoon the dough into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip. Lightly spray a cookie sheet and pipe two rows of approximately 4-inch churros with at least one inch in between each churro.
7. Bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
8. Spray churros lightly with cooking spray, and one at a time, transfer them to a square tupperware and coat with cinnamon sugar. Our smaller star tip and shorter rows produced 29 churros. 

I kind of want to make the Avocado Corn Salad again... Really, I just want any excuse to eat corn and avocado. The dough for the churros were so easy to make that I may actually consider making eclairs. Eclairs have more steps to them but at least I know for sure I've got the dough part down. I already have another recipe in mind to try next but it won't be as extravagant as this meal. I'll be on my own this time so I'm going to bring it back to basics in what seems like a really promising recipe (my mom is super excited about it so I can't back out).


Talk to you soon!

xo, Yvette