Aloha !

My posting of personal recipes will be on hold until I return from a Christmas vacation in Honolulu, Hawaii. But it does not mean I would let you down ! Hawaiians love to eat. Honolulu is full of restaurants, from the hawaiian plate hole-in-the-wall to the newest trendy (and crowded) places. The islands are literally at the forefront of asian cuisines with major exposure from China, Japan, Korea, Thailand or the Philipines. It's a smorgasbord of flavors !

Here is a list of my personal favorites, in no special order:

• any poke with ahi tuna, smoked octopus, mussels, or smoked marlin (I can just eat that day and night, who needs vegetables ?)
  
• seaweed salad (I guess that would make that my vegetables, right ?)
  
• an pan (chinese brioche filled with red bean paste, great for breakfast and the after-beach snack)
  
• Ted's haupia cream pie from Ted's bakery. Huge (at least two knuckles) layer of coconut pudding crowned with whipped cream. It's rapture on a thin layer of dough!
  
• Dave's hawaiian ice creams (taro, haupia, sweet potato especially!). Too bad the Honolulu store I knew closed.
  
• Dole plantation's pineapple ice cream. No travel on Oahu is complete without a trip to the Dole plantation. Not for the maze, the garden, the koi pond, or the store (all tourist traps imo), but for the absolutely delicious pineapple ice milk. Forget the sugar, it's pure pineapple flavor, period.
  
• mochi ice cream (just had a taste of a good one at Shirokiya today, cherry-blossom flavor!)
  
• and my latest discovery, huge cream puffs from Beard Papa's ! The chocolate cream reminds me of a mild chocolate mousse. What's more fun than linking the oozing cream off your fingers (or someone else's !!!! wink, wink).
  

And for the little time left when I don't eat, I go snorkeling. Enjoy the picture !

Parrotfish at the spa, curtesy of a cleaner wrasse

Cream Puffs made easy

Pistachio Cream Puffs

Light, fluffy, and easy to bite into, cream puffs are ideal treats for kids. They burst in your mouth with an array of flavors as large as the collection of ready-made puddings commercially available.
Adults will enjoy them equally. With ice cream filling and a chocolate sauce, puffs become "Profiterolles", a dessert fare found in trendy restaurants and an immediate winner in social gatherings.
But puffs can easily be turned into appetizers with surprise fillings, such as flavored ground meat, grilled vegetables, or a cheese mix (goat cheese, mmmmm). And they can be as small or big as you dare make them !
I love cream puffs for their versatility. And their simplicity ! The recipe I am sharing below took about 15 minutes, plus 30 minutes of baking time, during which you can prepare the pudding filling. In the picture, I used Kroger's pistachio pudding. I made about 25 bite-sized puffs with the given ingredients. Make it a family affair and have the kids place the filling !

Ingredients:

• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 60g butter (about 1/8 pound)
• pinch of salt
• 5 oz flour
• 4 eggs
• vanilla flavor

Directions:

1. Place water, salt, sugar, and butter in a pot and bring to a boil. When the content starts rising, like milk, take the pot off the heat and add the flour. Quickly stir to absorb the liquid. Place on low heat to dry up the batter, it shouldn't stick to the pot anymore.
2. Off the heat, add the eggs one by one, by blending each in the batter. The batter should be smooth in the end. You can add flavoring at this point, here I used vanilla.
3. Let the batter cool off a bit. In the meantime, grease a cooking pan and sprinkle some flour on top.
4. Use two teaspoons to place the batter on the cooking pan, one to measure the batter (1 teaspoon makes a bite-size puff, use a tablespoon for bigger puffs) and one to help placing it on the pan. Leave enough space between the batter blobs. Then you can lightly brush a dilute mix of egg yolk and water to give the puff a golden look.
5. Bake at 375F for 30 minutes. The puffs will rise and brown lightly. Let them cool down before filling them up.

If you are feeling fancy, you can top each puff with caramel. Prepare your caramel (water and sugar), then dip the top of the cream puff in the hot caramel, it will cool and crystallize quickly while you are holding the puff upside down.

It's a fun recipe, try it out !