A new favorite at our place. Mozzarella di Buffala served with a marinade of slightly fried spring onions, a small dash of balsamic vinegar, lemon and lemon zest salt, pepper, very good olive oil and plenty of chopped basil.
I make the whole marinade in the pan over medium heat. In the end I add the basil and let it sit for some minutes. Add it to the mozzarella when it's still warm so the cheese starts to melt a bit.

Goes well with plenty of vegetable salads, good bread and red wine of course.

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 ~

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.

Christoph Bruni and his cheese is well known here in Bern. He sells and produces some of the best cheese in the region. The only place to buy is on the farmer Market Tuesday and Saturday. Be prepared to wait half an hour till it your turn. Regardless all the people waiting Christoph takes his time to serve every customer and lets you know everthing about the cheese you buy. He only sells the finest cheese mainly from small producers. The visits remote producer and brings their products down to the market.
Today I bought a Toggenburger Sheep cheese from a woman who has only ten sheep. A real rarity.

Clockwise from top left:

- Fresh chèvre with ash
- Montgomery Cheddar
- Quince puree
- Le délice du chèvrier
- Brie du Maux
- Brebis
- Manchego

and stilton with port

The fresh chèvre was lovely especially with the quince ( it's just impossible that there are people who don't like chèvre ), the Montgomery from uwe delicious, the délice du chèvrier is alway a favorite of mine. The Brie and the brebis still not quite ripe enough. The Manchego I bought because of Alex James latest cheese testing in the Observer but it's not really my type.
The Stilton with port we got from uwe is delicious.

Montgomery cheddar and Stilton cheese

Christmas Pudding

Thanks uwe!