After a brief discussion with the lady down the cheese shop, I made my first cheese pies - they turned out absolutely delicious!

~ Serves 3 when accompanied by salad ~

Ingredients:

• 250g Fondue cheese mixture
• 80ml Light Sour Cream
• 1 small egg
• 1dl White wine
• 1 Garlic clove (chopped & crushed)
• 350g puff pastry (ready made...)
• 1 Teaspoon white flour
• Black Pepper, Caraway Seeds, Nutmeg (freshly ground)

Recipe:

1. Mix up cheese with all the ingredients except the pastry ;) in a bowl and let settle for half hour.
2. Preheat oven at 220 degrees
3. Butter a cup cake tray generously, press thinly rolled puff pastry into the shapes
4. Fill them two thirds with the cheese mixture
5. Bake for 25 - 30 minutes, bottom heat only for the last 5 minutes.

Thanks to a recipe by Christophe Champagnac of the Restaurant Les Arums I realized how beautifully anise goes with chestnuts. The original recipe was ' cappucino of chestnuts with star aniseed, pan fired foie gras, balsamic caramel ' (...). Now I don't eat meat and I had no star aniseed in the house, so I went about the recipe as follows:

• Sweat finely chopped onions in butter, quench with Pernod/Pastis
• Throw in 300g cooked chestnuts
• Add 2dl of vegetable stock, - preferably yesterdays home made vegetable soup, simmer for 25 minutes
• Add 100ml fresh cream, salt (if needed) and freshly ground black pepper

Heat 50g sugar in a pan until it turns brown, add 100ml balsamico vinegar, add this to your ready dish (drizzle on top or stir in lightly).

Serve with potato mash, some bitter veg like warm treviso (with pernot, garlic, lemon juice) or whatever suits you.

I work way to much at the moment, it's buying season and instead of trying new recipes from my lovely new cookbooks I run from one fair to the other.  Hotel breakfast and the junk food one usually eats  during the day don't make me feel too good either. In the evening we usually eat out but tis time I was to late with reserving tables so all the new restaurants I wanted to try were already fully booked.
Anyway I have a weekend at home and was full of ideas of things to do and to cook. Sadly I realized very quickly ( friday evening this means) that I am way to exhausted. And that instead of cooking great dinners, sewing this new pants I intended and blog a lot I should go for a walk in the wintery landscape and sleep a lot.
At this state I wish I would know more fast but yummy dinner recipe. Usually I do THIS but this involved too much different pans and plates, means to much cleaning up afterwards ...

This is probably the simplest  dinner I know and while it's baking one can take a hot bath, read a book or watch some telly.

Recipe:

you need:

6-7 pears
puff pastry
roquefort cheese

Roll out the dough, wash the pears cut into quarters and lay out on the dough.
Bake on 200° for 20- 30 minutes. Take the pie out sprinkle over the the roquefort cheese and put back into the oven and bake for another 10 minutes on 150°.
Serve with green salad or maybe a light soup.
Bon app!

I'm about to discover the beetroot. Thanks to nigel slaters new cook book "tender" . So far I was almost clueless what to do with a beetroot. I like them raw. I occasionally mad a raw beetroot salad with sesame. I tried soup once but wasn't satisfied.
Nigel has a lovely recipe for a salad whit beetroot and goats cheese which opened my mind.

Here a different approach to the theme:

This salad is really easy. Mixed green leaves, lukewarm beetroot, roquefort cheese. Depending on what else is on the menu garnish with walnuts.

4 small to medium beetroots skin on
mixed green salad leaves
roquefort cheese to garnish
walnut oil
olive oil
dijon mustard
red wine vinegar
salt and pepper

Bring a pan of water to boil ad the beetroot and let the beetroots simmer  for approximately 1 hour or until tender. I like them al dente. Let them cool till you can handle them. Take of the skin and cut into slices.

Make a dressing with the walnut oil, olive oil, dijon mustard, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper.
Mix the salad leaves and the beetroot toss in the sauce and garnish with roquefort cheese and walnuts.

Profiteroles are amongst my favorite desserts. I always order them in the restaurant if they are on the menu, but there are huge differences in the preparation and not all of them are equally nice. What you want is dark bitter chocolate over cold and creamy vanilla ice. To often one get puff pastry soaked in something like mousse au chocolat.

We had our annual coeur de sel xmas dinner this saturday and I decided to try to make profiteroles. ( as you already now I always need chocolate in my desserts ). It looks as if I'm into Pastry bags these days. For every other recipe I try you need one. Must be because of fannys lovely pastry blog.

The thought of making puff pastry made me a bit nervous. I remember years ago I tried to make a gateau saint Honoré which turned out horrible in the first attempt because of the puffs. I started with looking for a recipe. I found several in my cookbook collection. Every one of them was completely different concerning the puff pastry. Some used milk others only water and the quantities were totally different in each one of them - which made me think of julian barns book "Pedant in the kitchen" . A very funny book indeed. A must for everybody who likes cookbooks.

The puffs turned out quite nice in the end. Really funny it got when I tried to make the chocolate sauce. My recipe said I should make the sauce with 250 gr unsweetened cocoa powder, 100 gr sugar and 200ml water and 2 tbs starch. I tried. It's like spitting into sand. The tiny bit of cocoa who got moist stuck to the wooden spoon like it would be afraid of drowning the big rest dusted all over the place, also on the hot stove. At this point I decided not to use any starch and added lot more water. I ended up with a lovely chocolate sauce, enough for a whole army though.
Next time I'll use just plain dark chocolate.

Cream Puff Shells:
1 cup (250 ml) water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
6 tablespoons (90 grams) unsalted butter, cut into small chunks
1 cup (135 gram) flour
4 large eggs, at room temperature
Glaze: 1 egg yolk whisked with 1 teaspoon milk
Place 1 cup water, butter and salt in saucepan. Bring to boil. As soon as butter has melted, stir in 1 cup flour and continue stirring vigorously with wooden spoon until mixture has pulled away from sides of pan and formed a ball. Let the dough cool for five minutes, then briskly beat in the eggs, one at a time, until the dough is smooth and shiny. [At this point you can cover the pot and chill it in the fridge for up to a day.]
Using a pastry bag or 2 teaspoons, make small 1-inch mounds of dough on a baking sheet. Bake (on 220° ) the cream puffs for 20 to 35 minutes, or until puffed and well-bronzed.
Chocolate sauce:
200 gr dark chocolate
20 gr butter
3 tbs water
Melt the chocolate, butter and water In a water bath.
Let the puffs cool down cut them into half an fill with vanilla ice. Douse with the chocolate sauce and serve.

Certainly one of my favorite desserts, warm apples a hint of caramel and double cream.... yummy.
But somehow I never mange to make it. Often I make the dough but then I am busy cooking dinner and have not time to cook the apples and after dinner when everyone wants a dessert it would just takes to long to cook and bake the cake....
I suggest it's better to make tarte tatin for afternoon tea and not as a dessert after a whole menu when you have guests.
Anyway, it's definitely worth making especially now that it's cold and grey outside.

Pastry :
200gr plain flour
50 gr icing sugar
125 gr Butter chilled and cubed
1 medium egg yolk

Begin by making the pastry. Stir the flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl or food processor. Add the butter. Using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour or pulse the ingredients in the processor until the mixture resembles brad crumbs. Mix the egg yolk with 2 tbs water, then using a blunt knife, stir just enough of this mixture into the dough to make it come together. Wrap the pastry into cling film, pat it down into a flat disc so that it will be easier to roll out later and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to chill.

Topping
50 gr Butter softened
125 gr caster sugar
6 large dessert apples
1 lemon finely grated zest

To make the filling spread the butter over the cold oven proof frying pan and sprinkle the sugar over the top. Place the apples around the edge, round side down. Tilt them slightly, allowing them to overlap, as they will shrink later. Place over low flame and cook for 10 minutes so the sugar dissolves slowly. Once it has dissolved, turn up the heat to a medium high flame and cook for 15 - 20 minutes, occasionally giving the pan a light shake to prevent the apples burning. The juices will start to turn a glorious rich, amber colour. Be brave you want the apples to hold their shape, but you also want the juices to darken to a colour that will give the tart that rich caramel flavor with a slight hint of burnt sugar.
Like Mahogany .
Take the frying pan off the heat, scatter with the lemon zest - a must to stop it from being too sickly - and allow it to cool for 10 minutes so the pastry doesn't melt.

Preheat the oven to 200°. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out to a thickness of 3 mm - make it the size of your frying pan.  Place it over the apples. Patch together any cracks that appear. Place it on a backing sheet, to catch any drips - and cook for 25  -  30 minutes until the pastry is golden and dry.

Remove from the oven with proper oven gloves, the sugar will be dangerously hot and let it sit for 10 minutes.
Run a knife around it. Place a large plate over the top and flip over . If any apples are left in the pan simply scoop them out and replace them on the tart. Serve it as it is or with double cream or vanilla ice.

The perfect cake to be eaten after a long walk through winter landscapes or  a foggy autumn afternoon.

We're into soup these days. Broccoli soup, minestrone, barley soup ... Today it was onion soup. One day after the Bernese "Zibele Märit" it seemed like the right thing to cook.

1 kg organic onions
1 Tbs butter
6 gloves garlic
1 laurel leaf
a bunch of fresh thyme twigs
1.5 l vegetable stock
baguette bread
100 gr good sbrinz cheese grated

Melt the butter together with some olive oil, add the thinly sliced onions and garlic, the laurel and the thyme leafs and fry covered over medium heat. Stir from time to time. Fry for 15 minutes. Turn up the heat and let them become golden. This gives them a sweet and intense flavour. Add the stock and season with salt and pepper.
Let the soup simmer for 20 minutes.
Put the soup into a oven proof dish. Roughly break the bread and put it "on the soup" , drizzle some olive oil over the bread and ad the cheese. Put into the preheated oven until the cheese has melted and starts to become brownish.

We accompanied the soup with salad and a great selection of british cheese. Lincolnshire Poacher from the Isle of Mull, and Montgomery’s Cheddar.

More on the Zibele Märit?:

Still in a baking mood and at home with a heavy cold. I decided to try something I have never done before, a Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake. Inspired by a post on smittenkitchen. I like cheese cake but have not done one for ages. But chocolate cheesecake? Incited by debs declaration  "And I know, I know, everyone’s got a chocolate cheesecake recipe that they or their cousin-in-law swears by, but I’m going have to, yet again, brashly step forward and pronounce this one better than all of them." I went into the kitchen, not to convinced because the americans always use cream cheese (philadelphia this is) Here in europe we use curd=quark and that sort of cake is called curd cake = Quarktorte. The mix of philadelphia cream cheese and chocolate seemed repulsive to me. But the thought of a Chocolate Caramel cake sounded so delicious that I had to try anyway.

I probably haven't ever had that much fun making a cake. First the caramelizing of the sugar and then throwing in the cold cream and everything bubbling very angrily and getting stiff again :-) was nice.
Into this very hot mixture you just drop the chocolate which melts right away. And then you ad the white sour cream ...
A recipe full of relish !

The 6 hours the cake had to rest were quite a torture. I was so curious, could one really eat this cake? Not that I doubt deb's judgement but ...
After six hours I carefully cut a tiny slice and tried -  well let me tell you the cake is fantastic! And if I "the queen of chocolate cakes" ( There are men who want to marry just because of my chocolate cake) says this it has to be true. As deb says: "Be warned, however: this is not a cake you get away with only making once."

Chocolate Caramel Cheesecake
from smittenkitchen.com

Serves 8 to 10
1 crumb crust (recipe below)

1 cup sugar
3/4 cup heavy cream
8 oz fine-quality bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped

1/2 cup sour cream
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened

4 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Make crumb crust as directed in separate recipe, using chocolate wafer cookies instead of graham crackers.
Preheat oven to 350°F.

Cook sugar in a dry heavy saucepan over moderately low heat, stirring slowly with a fork, until melted and pale golden. Cook caramel without stirring, swirling pan, until deep golden. Remove from heat and carefully add heavy cream (mixture will vigorously steam and caramel will harden).
Cook over moderately low heat, stirring, until caramel is dissolved. Remove from heat and whisk in chocolate until smooth. Stir in sour cream.
Beat cream cheese with an electric mixer until fluffy, then beat in chocolate mixture on low speed. Beat in eggs, 1 at a time, then vanilla, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated and scraping down bowl between additions.
Put springform pan with crust in a shallow baking pan. Pour filling into crust and bake in baking pan (to catch drips) in middle of oven 55 minutes, or until cake is set 3 inches from edge but center is still slightly wobbly when pan is gently shaken.
Run a knife around top edge of cake to loosen and cool completely in springform pan on a rack. (Cake will continue to set as it cools.) Chill cake, loosely covered, at least 6 hours. Remove side of pan and transfer cake to a plate. Bring to room temperature before serving.

Do ahead: Cheesecake keeps, covered and chilled, 1 week.

Crumb Crust

I actually double crumb crusts; I can never get enough cookie.
Makes enough for a 24 centimeter cheesecake.
1 1/2 cups (5 ounces) finely ground cookies such as chocolate wafers
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1/3 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
Stir together crust ingredients and press onto bottom and 1 inch up side of a buttered 24-centimeter springform pan. Fill right away or chill up to 2 hours.

As you could see we had a busy weekend in the kitchen. Still in the fridge was the sablé dough, waiting to go to the oven.
The recipe comes from fanny from foodbeam, my new discovery. I love her blog, a feast to read and to look at.
I made the cookies together with my boy. We made the green tea and the chocolate at the same time. He knew immediately which ones he liked better... Already the dough is irresistible, instead of the 32 cookies we should have ended up with we had 22 rather small ones. From which only 15 survived the next hour - that's how good they are!

Here's the recipe which originally comes from Pierre Hérme from Paris

Even though the weather is still like summer ( 20 ° Wednesday evening ) , there's no doubt that autumn is here. Our neighbours did harvest all the quinces from the tree between our gardens. There's always plenty of recipes I would love to try with quinces I usually just do jam. And that's exactly what I did yesterday evening.

It was one of these superwoman days that unfortunately are very rare. After bringing our boy to the nursery, working 8 hours and doing the shopping for the weekend I went home and cooked dinner for our boy. Since he basically only likes pasta, chocolate, corn-flakes and raw vegetables we often cook separately for him. Fusili, spinach and artichokes. He did eat it!
We had linguine with figs and chilli and artichokes after he went to bed. After dinner I baked bread and still had the energy to make the quince jam! I wish I always had that amount of energy.
After last year's disappointment with mould on the jam after 2 month I decided to use way more sugar.
It turned out very nice but strangely the jam is yellow and not orange as usually.

Here my recipe:
Peel 1 kg ripe quinces remove the core and cut into quarters. Cook with 3 dl water and 800gr sugar in a shallow pan for approximately 30 minutes.
Puree put back into the pan and slowly bring to boil. Ad 2dl apple-juice a dash of lemon and 2 teaspoon of the best bourbon vanilla.
Immediately fill into hot glasses.