Stuffed mushrooms

Stuffed mushrooms!

Here's a nice idea for a starter to serve with some nice wine next to the fireplace. Just replace the wine with some softer non-alcoholic version for me :) like a scented water where you have let infused several citrus fruits (nice idea for a new recipe btw). 

Ham and swiss cheese bread/cake

Having friends coming over? Looking for a fast meal? Are on a diet and instead of baking a sweet cake you came to your senses and decide to bake a salty one? Then this recipe is for you. Here we have just loved it! What's the secret ? The swiss cheese (aged Gruyere) that makes all the difference :)

Bake this salty cake that you can either cut in cubes and serve it with toothpicks as an aperitif or serve it with a salad and have a full and tasty meal! 

Other ideas: 

• Tomato-mozzarella-oregano cake
• Feta & dried tomatoes cake
• Aperitif or cocktail hour flower

Zucchini and feta tarte

Here's a simple, light and tasty tarte for summer dinners...

Tyropita, the greek feta cheese pie!

Family was asking for tyropita, the Greek feta cheese pie, last week and searching to find the recipe in my blog I realized that it was missing! I had only the spanakotyropita recipe that is even better but more complicated. So, you can imagine the rest... had to take photos on top of cooking :)
I was extremely busy & tired and so was my daughter that I asked to take fast some photos, which explains the low quality of the result. But it's better than nothing,  no?
So, if you like feta cheese, try this recipe and you won't regret it :)
My only regret is that I had to leave immediately after so I tasted it much later at night when I came back... at least family was nice and had left me a few pieces !

Truffade auvergnate (sort of :)

Sometime ago, I was honored to accompany my son's class to a field trip in Auvergne (a french region), more precisely in Cantal a department in south-central France, with its capital at Aurillac.
We spent a dreaming week in a farm surrounded by animals, warm-hearted people and a beautiful, green scenery thanks to the volcanoes that the region is known for.
One of the last dinners, we had the chance to try one of their typical dishes, the delicious "Truffade Auvergnate" which is a sort of a thick pancake made with sliced potatoes, garlic and cheese (more precisely the variety called "fresh tomme" or Cantal jeune). For more information, search the web, for example wikipedia. After some scooping on the web, I've found that there exists also a similar recipe, "The Aligot", but I have never tried it yet. Maybe the next time that I will visit the region :)
Cheese is one of the typical products there, with Cantal cheese (one of the oldest in France, from the time of Gauls) but also Saint- Nectaire and Salers.
Cantal cheese is a firm (semi-hard) cheese, made from raw or pasteurized cow's milk from the Salers breed. According to the time of aging, it can be found in three varieties:

• Cantal jeune (1-2 months aged)
• Cantal entre deux (2-6 months)
• Cantal vieux ( more than 6 months)

In the recipe that I will provide you today (easy but so tasty!), I have used Cantal entre deux, that was the only one that I could find easily (sorry Celian for not being too concentrated the day that you proposed me to buy some when we were there, but I can now admit that I have some intolerance and that kind of cheese it always scares me :) 
Here it goes ....

Feta cheese balls

Remember the recipe of feta cheese pies (tyropitakia)?
It's one of our favorite salty starters and if you have never tried it before this is the moment to do it!

I am giving you an alternative that is pretty simple, much simpler than the original recipe.

Tyropitakia (Feta cheese pies with yoghurt dough)

I will share today with you, one of my favorite recipes, the "tyropitakia"! "Tyropitakia" are small cheese pies made with feta and there are various recipes to make them. The most known recipe is the one with pastry "fyllo" but today, I will give you the recipe that has a dough made with yoghurt and which is my favorite one.

They are delicious! If you end up falling in love with them like me, double the ingredients to make them last longer as they tend to disappear immediately coming out of the oven :) And if you are lazy, just mix everything and form small feta balls instead! (second photo on top)