Here are some cute savory flans really easy to make. They’re a perfect side dish for fish or meat and you can find thousands of variations. This recipe features Parmesan, goat cheese and spinach. Once you’ve mastered them you can let your imagination fly and try broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, eggplants or any vegetable you like with all sorts of cheeses. It’s a great recipe, very useful whenever you don’t have much in the fridge

Preparation time: 20 minutes – Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients (for 2 to 3 servings)

1 lb (450 g) of fresh spinach leaves
2 1/2 oz (75 g) of goat cheese
1 1/2 oz (45 g) of grated Parmesan
2 eggs
2 tablespoons of heavy cream
2 teaspoons of butter
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Wash and dry spinach leaves thoroughly. Pinch off the stems.

2/ Melt 1 teaspoon of butter in a frying pan over medium-low heat. Add spinach leaves and stir regularly until they’re soft.

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

4/ Dice goat cheese.

5/ Break eggs in a large bowl and whisk them with a fork. Add heavy cream, Parmesan, goat cheese and spinach. Add salt and pepper and whisk again.

6/ Grease individual ramekins with butter and pour flan mixture into them.

7/ Bake in oven for 20 minutes and serve right away.

This is the simplest recipe you can make when craving for a fresh salad on a hot summer day. It’s extremely easy to prepare and you might even have all the ingredients at hand already

It’s a very typical Mediterranean bean salad recipe. A very good basic you’ll be able to play with. Try replacing vinegar by lemon juice, add chopped cilantro, parsley and small chives and you’ll get into a whole new world!

Preparation time: 5 minutes – Refrigeration time: 10 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1 can (15 oz/ 425 g) of white navy beans
1 medium sized green bell pepper
1 medium sized red bell pepper
1 red onion

Vinaigrette

1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons of olive oil
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel red onion. Dice it finely. Plunge onion dices into a glass of water. (Before using raw slices of onion in a salad, you should always plunge them into fresh water for a while so they don’t taste too strong.)

2/ Wash and dry red and green pepper. Remove the core, pith and seeds. Dice pepper.

3/ Rinse and drain white beans.

4/ In a salad bowl, combine white navy beans, onion, red and green pepper. Season with salt and toss ingredients together.

5/ Prepare vinaigrette: In a small bowl, pour vinegar and oil. Stir energetically until vinaigrette is homogeneous. Add salt and pepper and stir again.

6/ Sprinkle two pepper and bean salad with vinaigrette. Refrigerate for 10 minutes. Serve cold.

This recipe was inspired by a mashed potatoes soufflé recipe from French magazine ‘Elle à table’. It’s called soufflé because of the puffy texture the purée gets when being baked in oven. Good news is it doesn’t involve any beaten egg white! It’s such an easy recipe, I invite you to try it with any mashed veggies you like.

Preparation time: 10 minutes – Cooking time: 30 minutes – Baking time: 20 to 25 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1.1 lbs (500 g) of broccoli
4 big potatoes
1 tablespoon of creme fraiche
1 oz (30 g) of butter
1 pinch of nutmeg
Salt & Pepper

Instructions

1/ Peel, rinse and dry potatoes.

2/ Rinse and dry broccoli.

3/ If you have a a pressure cooker, steam potatoes in it for 10 minutes after water starts boiling. Then, steam broccoli for 5 minutes. If you don’t, get water to a boil in two separate saucepans. Boil potatoes for 30 minutes and broccoli for 10 minutes. In all cases, add some salt.

4/ Preheat oven to 450° F (230° C/Th 8).

5/ Mash potoatoes and broccoli in a food processor. Add creme fraiche, half of the butter. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.

6/ Grease 4 ramekins with butter or margarine.

7/ Pour broccoli purée into the ramekins. Top with a piece of butter.

8/ Fill half of an ovenproof dish with boiling (or very hot water) and put ramekin on it. Bake in oven for 20 to 25 minutes.

Serve right away.

The other day, I was served a similar salad at a restaurant. It was made with white cabbage and green apple. It’s been a wonderful discovery, I loved it. It was so refreshing and flavorful! I loved the fact that it was so crunchy and juicy… Long story short, I decided to make more green apple salads from now on

Chicory (the Belgian endive kind) is great in salads. Whether it’s served natural or with walnuts and blue cheese, I’m a big fan of it. It sounded perfect to help me recreate the freshness I enjoyed so much in the cabbage salad. This is how these two ended-up together!

This green apple and Belgian endive salad is seasoned with basil and an old fashioned mustard and raspberry vinaigrette. Wonderful fruit flavors, slight mustard taste and tons of juice each time it crunches under your teeth… Enjoy!

Preparation time: 7 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

2 Belgian endives
1 green apple
2 tablespoons of chopped basil
3 tablespoons of olive oil (click here to buy online)
1 tablespoon of raspberry vinegar (click here to buy online)
1/2 teaspoon of old fashioned mustard (click here to buy online)
Salt & pepper

Instructions

1/  Rinse and dry endives. Take off the first leaves if they don’t look good. Cut off the hard part and carve a 1/2 inch cone into the end of the stem. Slice endives.

2/ Peel and cut apple into thin strips. (This technique is called Julienne or matchstick cut, it adds texture to the salad.)

3/ Combine endives, green apple and chopped basil in a salad bowl.

4/ Prepare vinaigrette in a smaller bowl: pour raspberry vinegar first, then add olive oil and mustard. Season with salt and pepper. (If you pour olive oil first, elements won’t mix well with each other. Here is the secret to a great vinaigrette… Easy, huh )

5/ Add a pinch of salt on the salad, pour vinaigrette and toss.

6/ Serve right away in small individual bowls or ramekins.

Tons of recipes combine spinach and coconut; that’s because they perfectly match together . If you never tried the combination, this soup is a perfect occasion for doing it. It’s slightly spiced thanks to half a red scotch bonnet chili pepper, a variety of hot chili from the Caribbean.  You can adapt this soup recipe’s spiciness to your own tastes: skip the pepper, use half for a slightly spiced soup or use a whole one (or two) if you like it really hot.

Preparation time: 10 minutes  – Cooking time: 20 minutes

Ingredients (for 4 servings)

1.1 lbs (500g) of fresh spinach
2 1/4 cups (56 cl) of vegetable stock
2 1/4 cups (56 cl) of coconut milk
2 garlic cloves
1 onion
1/2 lemon
1/2 red scotch bonnet chili pepper (optional)
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 teaspoons of cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger
4 tablespoons of grated coconut for decoration
Salt

Instructions

1/ Carefully clean spinach leaves and pinch off the stems if they’re thick and tough. Chop spinach leaves roughly.

2/ Peel onion and garlic cloves. Chop onions and crush garlic cloves with a spoon.

3/ Take seeds off chili pepper and finely chop it.

4/ Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add onion, garlic and chili pepper, take temperature down to low heat and leave them for 5 minutes.

5/ Add cumin, turmeric and grated ginger. Add vegetable stock and coconut milk and take to a boil. Reduce heat and leave covered for 10 minutes.

6/ Preheat oven on broiler setting.

7/ Add spinach and leave them for 3 minutes or until they wither.

8/ Liquidize 3/4 of the soup and put it back in the pan with the remaining quarter.

9/ Squeeze lemon, add to soup and season with salt.

10/ Grill grated coconut for 2 minutes in the oven.

11/ Serve in individual bowls and decorate with grilled coconut.