Endives are a great winter vegetable and can be eaten raw in salad or cooked, see this previous recipe from myfrenchtable for Endives au Gratin

They are really crunchy but can be slightly bitter so they work well with something sweet such as pears as I have used here but also lovely with avocado for example!

Ingredients:

• 4 endives
• 1 pear
• 50g emmenthal cheese
• Handful of walnuts
• Vinaigrette

Method :

1. Slice the endives lengthways, remove the base and chop
2. Peel and quarter the pear and then slice the quarters
3. Chop the cheese into small cubes
4. Place the chopped endive in a bowl and add your vinaigrette
5. Top with the sliced pear, cubed cheese ad a handful of walnuts

Ready!

Vinaigrette?

Everyone has their own preference regarding vinaigrette so the best thing to do is find one that you really like by trial and error. My basic vinaigrette is as follows :

1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

1-2 tablespoons of vinegar (red wine or balsamique usually)

3-4 tablespoons of oil – olive oil or rapeseed oil

A good dose of both salt and pepper

Taste and add more vinegar/oil/salt etc if necessary until you get the taste you are looking for . 🙂

Well this definitely isn’t a french recipe but one that I have always made when there were a few bananas left in the fruit bowl!

Ingredients :

• 175g self-raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon of bread soda
• 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 125g sugar
• 50g butter
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons of milk
• 3 bananas
• 50g walnuts

Method :

1. Pre-heat oven to 180°C
2. Sieve flour into a bowl and add sugar, bread soda and cinnamon
3. Melt butter in microwave and mix into the dry ingredients
4. Add milk, walnuts, egg and mashed bananas
5. Mix well
6. Pour into greased loaf tin
7. Bake at 180°C for 40 minutes