May 2008

Fabulous Swiss Cheese Fondue

by Kay~Kacey on 5/28/2008

This fantasic swiss cheese fondue is a regular on our dinner menu. We have it for the main meal. With a side of wine. 😉

Swiss Cheese Fondue:

1/4 lb Emmenthal Cheese (also spelled Emmental cheese, but don’t get me started…)
1/4 lb Swiss Gruyere
1 lb–give or take–any other Swiss Cheese…I prefer Baby Swiss
2 cloves garlic
juice from 1/2 lemon
1/4 c Kirschwasser (cherry brandy)
1/4 c white wine (don’t forget to taste this ingredient as you’re making the fondue!!)
sprinkle of nutmeg
1/4 c flour–give or take

swiss fondue ingredients

Okay, so this worked out well. I told SuperGuy that he had to cook, and I was in charge of the picture taking. You know, a group effort.

kacey's ingredient

I helped a lot with this ingredient. You know, tasting and sampling…

pour in kirschwasser

Pour in about 1/4 c kirschwasser…Cherry Brandy

white wine

Add about 1/4 c white wine. Pino Grigio is preferred by the finer chefs. 😉

smash the garlic

Smash the garlic with a knife. SuperGuy says this makes them easier to peel off that outer layer. Use your favorite knife.

chop garlic

SuperGuy insists I tell you to cut off the green tip end of the garlic. It can give a bitter taste. Who knew there were so many rules about chopping garlic?? I just, um, chop it… Anyway, add the garlic to the fondue pot.

juice from 1/2 lemon

Add the juice from 1/2 a lemon. (of course, then you have the problem of what DO you do with the juice from the other 1/2 of the lemon. But these quandries of the universe are more than we can really go into today.) See the lemon juicer? SuperGuy has a gadget for everything he does in the kitchen.

Turn on the fondue to medium and heat the liquid to just barely boiling.

swiss cheese

Here you see the cheese. About 1/4 lb ementhal and 1/4 lb swiss gruyere. About 1 lb of any other swiss. Baby Swiss is best. Trust me.

grate the cheese

Grate the cheese.

toss the cheese in flour

Toss the cheese in about 1/4 c flour. Hey, wait!!! Where the heck is his wedding ring??? Hey!! Be right back…

Okay, okay, he swears he took it off when he was staining a table he’s refinishing for me. All is forgiven. I’ll go retrieve the ring for him though…

add the cheese

Slowly add the cheese when the liquid gets to just boiling. You might want to turn down the heat just a bit. Sprinkle in some nutmeg. Just a bit.

serve with apples and bread

Serve with cubed bread and cubed apples. Or anything else you have around. Like veggies.

serve with white wine

We serve this as our main course. Yummy. Makes for a nice leisurely dinner of conversation and dipping into the fondue. Not to mention the competition to see who drops the fewest pieces into the fondue…

delicious

Doesn’t that look delicious?? We make it so often, we keep the cheeses and kirschwasser on hand. Well, and we never seem to have a problem coming up with the Pino Grigio either… A perfect dinner for two. If you have any left over, it’s really good heated over an open faced sandwich. Enjoy!

May I Have Another One Please

by Kay~Kacey on 5/27/2008

I want one of these. Well, to be honest, I have one of these. I want another one. Maybe two more. I love it. :love:

porcelain hand

We found this about a year ago when SuperGuy and I were antiquing. I keep it in my kitchen window sill to put my rings and watch on when I’m cooking messy stuff like meatloaf, or pounding bread dough. We paid about $20 for this. I think it’s adorable.

Now I’d like to find another one to give to my friend. We look every time we go antiquing, but no luck. Similar ones, but none I like as much as this one. Well, I lied. Sorry. We did find this exact same one again. It was $75 !!! Now, as you know if you are an flea market/antique shop shopper, half the fun of it is finding a good deal. $75 was NOT a good deal.

Now you’re asking, why didn’t I show it in my kitchen window? Well, I could lie (again) and say it’s because the lighting is lousy in the kitchen…which it is. But mostly it’s because I don’t want you do see my nasty kitchen window. Oh, what the heck. I’m sure I’ve shown you worse…

kitchen window

See, I have this garden window…but the gas seal in it blew, and it is all fogged over so you can’t see out. Then in the winter it leaks cold air, so we put up a clear plexiglass sheet over it while it’s cold. Um, the plexiglass is splattered here, and I need to have SuperGuy take it down because, well, it’s not cold anymore. Anyway, we called a guy to come replace the window and that has been going on forever. So we’re going to call someone else. I hate not being able to see out my kitchen window!!

So many topics in one post. Hands, windows. You just never know what you’ll get when you come visit my blog, do you? So have you ever seen one of these hands when you’ve gone antiquing? Because I want another one! My friend will love it. I want to give it to her, because she finds me the most awesome presents. We kind of give each other presents for no particular reason, you know? Just because we’ve been friends forever.

Don’t forget the May Photo of the Month…the theme is Motherhood. Read more about it here. Anything that motherhood means to you. Read suggestions at the above link. Most creative shot is going to be a BIG winner. Fame and fortune and all that. Please use the contact link at the top of my website to send me a link to your photo. I’ll remind you once again in a few days, okay?