A Swiss Dish Straight from the Slopes

It's about this time of year when you suddenly find yourself surrounded by people who have just come back from a quick ski break, or who are wanting to "get a week in this season" at the end of the month or who are renting a chalet with friends in the 3 valleys and whether you even like the sport or not, you just cannot help it.  It creeps up on you like a slow blush rising up your neck and then there it takes hold of you like the green eyed monster it is...you have what I call ski envy.  You cannot help but start to pray very hard for France, Switzerland, Austria... what the heck, the whole of mainland Europe to have one of it's warmest winters on record and remarkably very little precipitation especially on high ground.

Yes, it's miserable, it's winter, you are poor and everyone is jetting off to the Alps around you, but that isn't to say you can't bring a little of the Alps to you.  In fact, suffering greatly from this syndrome that seems to afflict the young and penniless, we find ourselves doing this throughout the year.  Take for instance last summer, I can't remember much sunshine but I do remember about a week of particularly humid conditions, so what did we do?  We bought a bottle of Mateus (cheap and cheerful) some king prawns to fry off in a little garlic butter (minus the garlic) white wine, lemon juice and a sprinkle of parsley and we threw open our Juliet balcony windows and pretended the angry tea time traffic below was simply the tooting of scooters and smart cars weaving their way through the narrow streets of the old town in Verona (yes I am mixing Juliet/Italy with Mateus, a Portuguese wine, but lets not let the facts get in away of a good story).

One of my favourite winter warmers is cheesy swiss bake, a recipe I found whilst trawling the good food website for inspiration a couple of years ago and liked it so much I added a slightly modified version of it to my repertoire. This is also easily adaptable to a vegetarian option if you substitute the bacon and add extra veg such as mushrooms, butternut squash and even peppers as well to make this a satisfying vegetarian meal.

Here is the link:
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1928/cheesy-swiss-bake

My modification
Instead of raclette cheese, I use a block of gruyere (about 200g) grated and some parmasean or grana padano (about 100g) and I also add mushrooms to the dish.  I also find the amount of wine in this recipe is too overpowering for the dish and actually, probably half that amount is enough; a good glug or enough to taste, I would say.

BE WARNED this is a highly calorific dish so this is what I do for a healthier version:

• Have this as a side dish, to accompany a low fat meat such as turkey breast and green veg.
• Substitute the double cream for either half fat creme fraiche or reduced fat double cream (Elmlea do an extra light version).
• Don't have too much! This is a great dish for sharing so invite people round to make sure it gets eaten and you aren't tempted.
• Eat this dish after actually having done exercise (preferably out in the cold so you get that just off the slopes feeling, which adds to the overall effect that we are trying to achieve).

And to finish off, you can either redeem yourself with a tasty fruit salad with a dollop of ski yoghurt on top,or go the whole hog and have apple pie and custard.  Whether you are jetting off for some winter sports or curling up at home this one is a perfect winter warmer.