I love making brunch on week-ends. You get out of bed too late to have breakfast and still be hungry at noon. Or you get up at noon, it’s too late to call it breakfast but you’re still not ready to have lunch . This soft cooked egg and bacon salad is a perfect brunch recipe but, of course you can have it with any other meal! I usually skip mustard in the seasoning sauce when I make it in the morning, it’s less aggressive when you just woke up!

Preparation time: 10 mn  Cooking time: 10 mn

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

4 eggs
4 slices of bread
3 1/2 oz (100 g) of bacon
3 1/2 oz (100 g) of corn salad (you can also use arugula if you prefer)
6 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard (Click here to buy online)
1/2 lemon
Salt and pepper

Instructions

1/ Preheat oven to 410° F (210° C / Th 7).

2/ Get water to a boil in a saucepan.

3/ Brush bread slices with olive oil (3 tablespoons) and bake in oven for 5 minutes on each side.

4/ When water is boiling, add eggs carefully. (I usually put the egg in a tablespoon, it’s much easier to get it gently to the bottom of the saucepan). Leave them in boiling water for 4 minutes. When they’re done rinse them with cold water and leave aside.

5/ Heat a frying pan over medium heat and add bacon slices. Cook for 3 minutes on each side, or until bacon looks crispy.

6/ When bacon is done, leave it in a plate covered with a napkin to drain its fat.

7/ Dice bread and cut bacon into pieces.

8/ Squeeze lemon in a bowl and whisk mustard, 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper with it.

9/ In 4 plates, arrange corn salad, bacon and bread pieces. Serve on top lemon sauce.

10/ Carefully remove egg shells and place a soft cooked egg on top of each plate. Break it for the egg yolk to flow.

11/ Serve right away.

Here is a recipe I like to make often. It’s fast, easy and really tasty! I love Mediterranean flavors and these ones really enhance a good beef meat. I used green olives, but it’s only a matter of taste, you can replace them by black olives if you prefer. Replace capers by sun-dried tomatoes and you have a new Mediterranean meatballs recipe .

Preparation time: 20 mn  Cooking time: 15 mn

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

18 oz (500 g) of ground beef meat
5 tablespoons of stoned green olives
5 oz (140 g) of feta cheese (1 1/2 oz for topping + 3 1/2 for mixture)
4 tablespoons of dried breadcrumbs
7 tablespoons of milk
4 tomatoes
2 eggs
3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 big onion
2 teaspoons of capers
Salt and pepper

Instructions

1/ Soak breadcrumbs in milk in a small bowl.

2/ Peel and chop onion.

3/ Heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over medium heat. Add onion and let it melt gently.

4/ In a salad bowl combine meat, eggs and breadcrumbs. Add salt.

5/ When onions are translucent and soft, take them off heat and let them cool down.

6/ Chop olives and feta cheese. Combine with meat mixture.

7/ When onions have cooled down a little, add to mixture along with capers.

8/ Shape into meatballs. (Don’t make them too big, they would be more difficult to keep in one piece. A good size is slightly  bigger than the tomato slice you’re going to add on top )

9/ Preheat oven to 350° F (180° C/Th 6).

10/ Heat in a pan over medium/high heat 2 minutes on each side.

11/ Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to an ovenproof dish and dispose meatballs.

12/ Rinse and slice tomatoes.

13/ Add a tomato slice on top of each meatball. Top with feta cheese, 1 tablespoon of olive oil, salt and pepper.

14/ Bake in oven for 15 minutes or until feta cheese has a nice golden color.

Serve with gratin dauphinois,  green asparagus, mushroom baked potatoes or spinach soufflés.

We’re in the middle of fruit season; it’s a perfect time for experimenting with crumble. I had different kinds of fruit left and tried different combinations. Some of them didn’t come out so great, but apricot and mango made it unforgettable This is  a basic crumble recipe: apricot and mango can be easily replaced by any fruit. Crumble is really, really easy to make. You should try!

Preparation time: 10 mn  Cooking time: 30 mn

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

6 apricots
1 mango
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
2/3 cup of flour
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 cup of butter

Instructions

1/ Mix flour and sugar in a salad bowl. Cut butter into small pieces and incorporate them one small amount at a time. Rub into mixture until it looks like breadcrumbs.

2/ Preheat oven to 410° F (210° C / Th 7)

3/ Peel and slice mango.

4/ Clean and slice apricots.

5/ Butter an ovenproof dish and add fruits sprinkling with vanilla sugar between layers. Scatter with crumble mixture.

6/ Bake in oven for 30 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

Serve warm with vanilla ice cream.

I hadn’t had cuttlefish for so long I almost forgot how good it was! This recipe was made with a fresh cuttlefish, but if you’re a beginner you might rather use frozen pieces… I must admit that cleaning it was pretty disgusting although the result was totally worth it

Preparation time: 20 mn  Cooking time: 1 h

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

3,3 lbs (1.5 kg) of cuttlefish
3 garlic cloves
2 1/2 cups of white wine (dry)
2 onions
2 bay leaves
1 can of diced tomatoes
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 tablespoon of thyme
1/8 cup of Cognac
Saffron
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Clean and dice cuttlefish.

2/ Pour olive oil in a frying pan and heat it over medium heat. Add cuttlefish.

3/ Peel and chop garlic and onions.

4/ When all the water from the cuttlefish has evaporated, add garlic, onions, bay leaves, thyme and a small amount of saffron.

5/ Add Cognac. (If you’re an advanced cook, you can ‘flamber’ which means setting the alcohol on fire for a short amount of time. In this case you need to warm Cognac before adding it to the pan, take pan off heat, then lit it on fire).

6/ Pour diced tomatoes and wine into the pan. Add salt and pepper.

7/ Get to a smooth boil for approximately 5 minutes then reduce heat and leave covered for 1 hour.

8/ Serve with rice or tagliatelle pasta.