Zoe's Blue cheese, honey and walnut salad

I love blue cheese.  I'm actually surprised that I only have one other recipe that involves blue cheese on this blog so far, and I assure you that I will make every effort to include more!

I have memories of tasting it for the first time many many moons ago, at a large family gathering (possibly Christmas or one of my many cousins' birthdays), the cheese platter would be presented and there would be all manners of cheesy goodness.  I remember one of my uncles explaining to me that the blue green veins were mould, and that the white velvety covering on a piece of brie was also mould.  It grossed me out, but also totally fascinated me that we would deliberately eat it!  So naturally, I tasted it, and that is where the love affair started!

My love for the blue veined cheeses grew when i discovered certain combinations of flavours.  My first love was blue cheese and cured meat - Salami and Parma ham in particular.  Then came blue cheese with walnuts! then came blue cheese with pears! and then finally, and i must say it was one of those epiphany moments, came the discovery (thanks to Warren, chef at Barracuda restaurant) of the foodgasm that is blue cheese and honey.

Blue cheese is one of those cheeses that I cannot NOT like.  I can not be in the mood for it, but I have loved every single type of blue cheese that has entered my mouth, whether it be pasteurised, cave ripened, sheeps, goats, cow's, speciality, cheapo grocery bought cheese.  I have almost as much love for cheap Danish blue than I have for an unpasteurised speciality Roquefort or a pot ripened Stilton soaked in port.  YUM!

I guess I've been somewhat of a foodie since I was weaned, and one of the main reasons was CHEESE!  I love cheese so much!  My (food) highlight of every family gathering is the cheese platter after dinner, sitting there sipping wine, nibbling on cheese and having the inevitable lively discussion, whether it be politics, religion, or some topic that will raise a few voices and possibly end in someone sulking :P (i adore the fact that we can do this and still have so much love for each other).

ANWAY, I am lucky to have found fellow foodie friends, amongst them my lovely half-Maltese, half-French friend Zoe :)  We bonded over how much we have in common all those years ago, and cemented it with cheese.  We are both obsessed with cheese!  It's so tasty! so delicious, and we have spent many a nights just having one more piece of cheese to finish the wine, or one more glass of wine to finish the cheese, repeat ad nauseum and/or drunken food coma :)

This salad is her creation!  Blue cheese, walnuts, prosciutto crudo, pears, dressed with  honey, served with masses of fresh baby salad leaves... perfection!  All these ingredients go so well with each other, it's only natural that we would bring them all together into one of my favourite salads on this planet!

Sorry about the bad quality camera pic! 

Frosting - cream cheese and buttercream.

yumyum cakes!

Frosting is a little funny sometimes, it might work out perfectly one time, and another time it just ends up being a runny mess.  here are some pointers to help you get it right.  

At the bottom of the post, there are a bunch of pictures, including "successful" and "failure" frostings. 

First of all, the most important things - it seems like a stupidly long list, but really, once you've made it once successfully, you'll see it's actually not hard!

Tartiflette

Oooh!  Tartiflette!  I love the name, and I love absolutely everything about this!  It's a lovely dish, a DEFINITE winter warmer, and the whole of this dish, from beginning to end is all about decadence! :D  This is definitely not a "diet-friendly" meal, in any way, shape or form.  It's originally from Haute-Savoie a tiny part of France tucked away between lake Geneva and Mont Blanc (also, incidentally, the first ever Winter Olympics were held there, in Chamonix).

This dish is such a great dish to serve with a couple of friends, it's lovely and simple, and so tasty! You could easily adapt this recipe (say, using mushrooms, or using different cheese to Reblochon) to become something that is not Tartiflette, but Tartiflette based.  I have no issue with this.  I'm sure that it would be awesome, and to be honest now I just want to try the recipe with mushrooms and Brie/Port Salut.  But that is not Tartiflette.  This is Tartiflette :)

Tartiflette!  What a great word <3

yummmm

Lala's lasagne

This recipe is pretty much my mum's recipe.. although we always manage to make it taste completely different.  To be honest mine tastes different every time. but i must say, I do like my own (and my family's) lasagne.  There are a few other people's lasagne dishes I've enjoyed, I can literally count them on 1 hand (my Uncle Kiki's, and my Aunt Isabel's, and my best friend's mum Pat).  I'm sure there are plenty of delicious lasagnas out there but i haven't had the pleasure, and frankly, I don't even really want to try cos there's not much I abhor tasting more than a bad lasagne. 

anyway here goes:

Spaghetti with olive oil, garlic, herbs and ricotta

This is one of those simple sauces that i love! When we started making it, it was going to be an "olio aglio" but found a small amount of ricotta in the fridge so in it went, along with some of the basil we have growing in the courtyard :)

So simple, so good! :)