I like to experiment with ready made pasta dough. Even though I'd love to get a pasta thing for my kitchen aid. But we live next to a pasta "factory" where we can buy the dough. You even get it in supermarkets these days.
This is inspired by a ottolenghi recipe. Perfect to use up some left over goats cheese - something we always have.
Serves 2.

Mix together the goats cheese, squash it with a fork. Add 3/4 of the lemon zest. Season with salt and pepper.
Make the pasta. I always use two layers and "glue" them together with some beaten egg white. 
Use a glass to cut out the rondini this will seal them together. Cook immediately or cover with cling film till you cook them .
Cook in boiling saltwater for 3-5 min.
In a small pan, melt the butter till it starts to turn slightly brown. Add the red pepper flakes and some more lemon zest.
Season with a bit of salt.

Put the butter over the rondinis and sprinkle on the tarragon.
Lovely simple dinner I must say! Or maybe a primi if you want to impress ...

I've been complaining about my lack of coming up with my own recipe here before, all the more I'm proud to present one now.
It seems I'm better with sweet dishes than with salty ones.
We were invited to a friends place and had nothing to bring along. Kevin said he would like to bring something sweet and that we still had some of these nice pears. Maybe we could make something with these. Instantly I had this idea of a Mille-feuille, something one cut cut into slices. Obviously dark chocolate would have to be involved too.
So off I went into the kitchen experimenting with dough and 70 percent black chocolate.
I was very please with the result and so were our friends but over the past weeks I have been developing this further and now I think it's rather delicious.

The  Mille-feuille

Roll out the puff pastry and sprinkle generously with sugar. Blind bake ( with baking beans ) on 170° for approximately 15 min. Before it starts to get brown take of the beans and put it back into the oven on a high rack to let the sugar caramelize . Once the sugar caramelized take it out and let it cool.

The dark chocolate mousse

Melt the chocolate over simmering water, the water should not touch the bowl. Let it cool down a bit. Bring the milk to boil and gently blend it into the chocolate using a small whisk. Add the egg yolk, again very gently.
Beat the egg whites on medium speed till they hold soft peaks then turn the speed up and gradually add the sugar. Continue to beat until they are firm but still glossy. Mix one third of the egg whites into the chocolate to lighten the mixture. Use the whisk for this . Now carefully fold in the rest with a rubber spatula. Put into the fridge.

The pears

Finely slice the pears and let them soak in a mixture of Port wine, lemon zest and vanilla seeds for an hour or more.

To make the "mille feuille" uns a oven dish or bis pastry form if you have. Cut the pastry so it fits neatly into the form.
Layer with the pears. Cover with a thick layer of chocolate mousse and but into the fridge for 2 hours.
Take our and sprinkle with grated chocolate and cut into slices - bon appetit!

We'll bring you some  nice wine and cheese ...

Thanks to the BBC ipad app I can finally watch Nigel slaters simple supper series. I guess it's not really surprising that I also love his tv show - a fan is a fan after all. But seriously it's great! He just knows how to make simple things. A lot is about how to make the best out of what you have in the fridge and how to make left overs shine. Something I'm not very good at. He's also focussing on growing your own vegetables .

One thing we always have lying around in the fridge is all sorts of old cheese pieces. One of his tips was throwing a bit of hard left over parmesan into your soup and cook it with the other ingredients it gives your soup a nice earthy flavor. Take the cheese out before serving the soup though.
But the dish we are raving about here is his Leftover cheese dish.

Grate the cheese roughly, some bigger bits are nice too. Add plenty of fresh thyme, black pepper and some nutmeg.
Add the egg yolks and the cream - mix.
Beat the egg whites. Mix the cheeses mixture with the egg whites mix it good but carefully.

Butter 3 ovenproof dishes, sprinkle on some grated parmesan. Add the cheese and sprinkle on some more parmesan. Add some more thyme leaves.
Bake for 10 minutes in a very hot oven.

Serve with green salad and some fresh bread.

We left our favorite cook book shop - "Books for cooks" with this little gem.

A "thesaurus" of different flavour combinations. Former marketing executive Niki Segnit has taken 99 flavours (from potato and cucumber to black pudding and washed-rind cheese) and grouped them into hundreds of pairings, each accompanied by an elegant, and often highly witty, mini-essay.
This book is basically packed inspiration. The sort of book which should always lay on the kitchen table or beside the sofa.
It's funny, interesting full of historical and scientific references, anecdotes and recipes. You can just read it like a novel - but one that will leave you hungry.  But you can also pick it up when you lack inspiration or have only a few things left in your fridge and don't know what do do with them.

read the guardian review

www.flavourthesaurus.com/

Heston at home is the first cook book that I bought in a while and it's totally different from the books I usually buy.
But having seen his show Heston's Mission Impossible on Channel 4 I'm a bit of a fan. Particularly the episode where he goes onboard HMS Turbulent, a nuclear-powered Royal Navy attack submarine where he plans to shake up the crew’s diet.
I'm still only reading the book but there are plenty of very interesting recipes and I'll love to try cooking the blumenthal way.
I'll keep you posted.

January february are traditionally the quiet months here on coeur de sel. There are several reasons for this, first off, after all this christmas cooking it's time to take it easy, I'm usually a bit fed up with cooking I have to admit and I'm starting to run out of ideas of what to cook with winter vegetables too. I dream of spring onions and broad beans and baby carrots. But its also the time when I have to travel a lot for my job and have no time for cooking.

To make up for the silence around here I like to show you a glimpse of the coeur de sel workspace , we did a bit of renovation. As I said before we rent our flat so we can only do minor changes. Beside the new tiles, we flattened the abrasion walls, painted the ugly wooden ceiling and made new shelves.

new shelves

the wall

my love - the 20 year old Pavoni

blogging workspace

Please excuse this crapy picture but this dish took us by surprise. It was one of these sunday evening fridge leftover dishes that turned out to be a star.
Very unexpected flavors for a casserole but totally delicious.

Mix everything together, sprinkle the cheddar on top and bake covered in the oven for ~40 min. ( 230° )

I was in Paris in January - job wise. I like Paris but I'm really not lucky when it comes to restaurants. I usually work late and don't have time ( and am to tired ) to go to one of the "must go" restaurants where you need to book days in advance. So I try smaller places with not much success. The food french restaurants serve seems so outdated and always way to heavy. Since I go twice a year I would be very grateful for some tips.
But I love the french products, my suitcase is always stuffed with cheese, sweets ( finally made my way to Pierre Herme) and Wine.
This time I finally made it to Dehillerin again. Since years I'm dreaming of a iron pan like nigel slater uses it - I always new Dehillerin is the place to buy one but I did not find time. So after certainly more than 6 years it just blew my mind again this is just THE shop for cooks. Love it!
The family run business exists since 1820. They stock everything a cook needs.

E. DEHILLERIN
18 et 20, rue Coquillière - 51, rue Jean- Jacques Rousseau - 75001 PARIS
Tél. : 01 42 36 53 13 - Fax : 01 42 36 54 80
http://www.e-dehillerin.fr

Open monday from 9h to 12h30 and from 14h to 18h
tuesday till saturday from 9h à 18h.
Closed on sunday

We finally found time to cook again my son and me. It's been a long time and we both missed it. But since he is going to kindergarten everything got a bit more complicated.

Inspiration came as usually from the brilliant " je sais cuisiner pour mes doudous"
Dinner was little black spiders and skulls. Shane did all the cooking by himself. I was only allowed to cut some sculls .

Cut little orange eyes from red cheese or carrots or...
Decorate black olives with the eyes.
Boil black noodles or spaghetti in plenty of salt water.
Cut out some dangerous things ( with a knife ) from puff pastry and bake in the oven for some minutes ( on 170° )
Drain the noodles and make little spiders ( with 8 legs ;-) ) with the olives and the pasta.
Decorate the table and invite some friends.