Eileen and I were at our friend Melissa’a home for dinner recently (it was an excellent meal as you’d expect) and she was telling us about this amazing bleu cheese soufflé from Ina Garten’s cookbook Barefoot in Paris. Melissa had made it once before and raved about it. Leafing through the book made my mouth water, everything looked delicious and also practical to make.

We stopped into the local bookstore and picked up a copy at the very next opportunity. There are a quite a few good recipes in this book. We’ve made the fennel salad and rosemary cashews, both are easy and excellent. Eileen really wanted to try the soufflé but I’d never made a soufflé before, and always heard it was really tricky. Certainly there are plenty of jokes about slamming doors and banging pots causing the soufflé to fall. But I decided to give it a whirl anyways, with Eileen’s encouragement. And she said she was hungry, so it was either order something or make the soufflé.

It turned out extremely well. I’ll definitely make it again. Eileen thought of making this as a side to a roast lamb dish, so I’ll have to find an excuse for a dinner party and make it!