My first Raclette dinner!

This year, my Christmas gifts from my family members all had a theme-- cooking. In addition to a pasta maker, an air popcorn popper, and a panini maker, I also received something called a "raclette." A raclette, I was told, comes from Switzerland, and is a small grill-type thing that has a rack underneath the grill where you melt cheeses that you then scrape and put over the traditional potatoes, or bread, meats, and vegetables (that you cook ON TOP of the grill.)

I had never heard of it before but it instantly had me thinking of one of the most memorable meals of my life -- fondue in Switzerland that ended with us scraping every single piece of cheese possible off of that pot and eating every bite of it (pictures below).

Friday night a couple friends came over for dinner to my apartment and I decided to try out the raclette. I warned them beforehand that I was trying something new and that it involved them sort of cooking their own dinner. They were down for it and it turned out to be a really fun and delicious meal! I was unsure of amounts/types of food to buy and I think I selected too many items and then didn't buy enough of all of those. But this is what I put out to eat:

- Chicken (raw, cut into bite size pieces)

- Sweet italian sausage (raw, cut into bite size pieces)

- Potatoes (boiled, cut into bite size pieces)

- Prosciutto

- Sliced bread

- Cut up red and yellow bell peppers

- Cut up red onion

You are supposed to use raclette cheese but I could not find it at the grocery store and instead picked out a smoked swiss, grayere cheese, and a garlic/herb cheddar. The cheddar and grayere were perfect and the smoked swiss had a little trouble melting. It was all delicious though and really fun. My roommates wanted to do it again the next night!

Happy Raclette Crowd:

Throwback photos to fondue in Switzerland. Every now and then I realize that I have definitely done some growing up over the past few years. This is true for this moment.