Fig & Goats Cheese Canapes

After yesterday, when my shopping trip was cut short due to our dash to the doctors, we decided to head to the shops and stock the fridge.

Food shopping in France is one of my favorite things to do. The choice and quality are fantastic. We bought wonderful dried herbs, artichokes, all sorts of cheese and quail to name a few of the ingredients I'll be using this week.

With the shopping done we headed to the beach for the afternoon. After lots of sand castles, paddling and slightly gritty sandwiches we arrived home salty, bronzed and covered in sand - our holiday has definitely started.

Rich and I were hungry after a day in the sun, so while he popped the children into bed I made us canapes, they were great with a cold glass of rose ...

FIG & GOATS CHEESE CANAPÉS - Serves 2 (4 each)

Ingredients
Baguette, 2 Slices of Parma Ham, 1 Fig, 2 Teaspoons of goats cheese, 2 Teaspoons of mascarpone, 1 Teaspoon of runny honey, olive oil, Salt and pepper

- Turn the oven to 200
- Mix the goats cheese, mascarpone and honey together and season to taste with salt and pepper, cover and place back in the fridge
- Slice the baguette into 1/2 cm thick slices, place on baking tray and drizzle with olive oil. Cook in the oven for 5-6 minutes till crisp and golden, remove from baking tray and allow to cool completely
- Slice the fig into eight. Start by cutting the fig in half cutting end to end so you cut through the top of the fig rather than through the thick middle. Once in half cut each half into quarters and then eighths
- Place one slice of Parma ham on a cutting board and cut into four pieces that are roughly 8cm x 3cm. Repeat with the second slice
- You now have eight pieces of fig and eight small stripes of Parma ham. Wrap each fig in a little bit of Parma ham
- To put the canapes together, spread the goats cheese mixture on the baguette then top with the fig wrapped in Parma ham and serve

Cooking notes
Parma ham is not an exact science as slices can vary so much. You need eight strips that are about 8cm x 3cm each for this so use this as a guide when buying the Parma ham.

You need very good, runny goats cheese for this.

Adapting
If you don't like goats cheese you could replace it with a soft blue cheese like dolcelatte. Use sparingly though as can be quite strong and over power the other flavours.